Inspector Hathaway
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: A life left behind becomes a life let go of as James Hathaway has to face what he sees as his greatest regret. With Robbie and Laura back from New Zealand and a hideous case of a sexual predator on their hands, the concept of blame is brought under a light for scrutiny, and James has to decide if he can face that light or turn away.
1. A Kingdom By the Sea

**A/N: So, this may well be a series of episodes, but at present this is the only one fully realized. It will be continued, but do not expect regular updates. Among life and other such things, I already have a lot of stories going, and chapters this size take time to write and edit. Cheers!**

 **C**

To call it morning, even early morning, would have been generous. James Hathaway rammed his hands into the warmth of his coat pockets and approached the cordoned off scene. Robbie Lewis had also just arrived at the scene, directly behind the Covered Market, where a worker had been pulling out the bins for the morning, and found something more than unexpected.

"What have we got?" James asked DS Lizzie Maddox, who was approaching from where she'd been crouching with Laura Hobson, over the body.

"Katie Davies, age twelve," Maddox said to both men, frowning. "Parents reported her missing when she wasn't home for dinner. She usually gets a lift from a friend's mum from school to riding lessons, then walks home after the lessons. There's two fields between the stables and her house. We used the papers and cell phone in her bag for preliminary I.D."

"Killer wanted her to be found and identified," Robbie said darkly. "Probably got in a car, so someone she trusted."

"Definitely a sexual motive," Maddox added quickly. "Strangulation marks and a blow to the back of the head, so Dr. Hobson says we'll have to wait for the postmortem for cause of death. Time of death, between four and six yesterday evening."

James frowned at the thin body of the brunette and whispered, "She was moved." Her hair reminded him of something, someone, but he couldn't put a finger on who. Even the way it splayed around her head on the ground caused small flashes of memories, not long enough to place.

Maddox held up an evidence bag containing a crumpled receipt.

"Found on her stomach," Maddox said, frowning at the bag. "Scene's been staged, from her bag to her hair to the receipt on her body. SOCO's logging everything, and we're trying to get a timeline on when it could have been done unseen."

What none of them wanted to say, but all were thinking as Robbie took the evidence bag for a closer look, was they'd have to put out a bulletin to the press for information requests to the public. Never pleasant with crimes against children.

"Bookshop on Canal Street," Robbie said. "Time and date stamp, product code, but no title. Twelve pound fifty, whatever it was."

"Right," James said, checking his watch. "Right, let's organize evidence. I'll tell the parents, get someone in for formal identification. Lizzie, take statements here and organize a timeline. I'll meet you at the bookshop, Robbie, around lunchtime. I'm supposed to check in with Nell. What's the shop called?"

"Tome," Robbie read off the receipt. "You get on; we have it covered here."

/-/

In decades of police work, sexual crimes against children were one thing Robbie didn't think he'd ever get used to seeing. First crime back from New Zealand, and he looked at the half-stripped body of Katie Davies, with her pale legs bruised and her fine, chestnut brown hair splayed about her head like a halo in a medieval painting.

"I'm moving the body," Laura said softly. "The Market need their alley back, and SOCO's done all the photographs and measurements. Anything you need from me?"

"Lizzie said sexual motive," Robbie said, quirking his eyebrows as a prompt.

Laura hummed, then said, "Blood from the ruptured hymen and torn walls congealed on ripped panties. Clear vaginal trauma before death, but you'll have to wait for more. James has gone to the parents?"

Robbie nodded, glancing at the body one last time. He decided to head back to the station, accomplish some organization before he went to the bookshop. He told Maddox where he'd be before going in, and he drove back to the station, getting coffee on the way.

Everything was as he remembered, from the car park to the faces in the corridor, from the incident board to the slightly creaky chair at his desk. He started organizing CCTV requests and chasing down statements from preliminary questioning when the missing child report was filed the night before. Lizzie came in to help with the organizing of statements, adding in the ones she'd gathered that morning, and they were just getting a sense of Katie's week before the disappearance, when Lizzie pointed out the time. Realizing he was meant to be meeting James at the bookshop, he dropped the photograph of the victim and said he'd be back in a tick, and to keep on the CCTV requests.

/-/

Tome was so packed with books, one might think the owner never sold a one. In truth, for every book sold, she acquired three for sale, and rather than stacking them in inventory, she tried to cram in every book she could on the sales shelves, passionate about every customer finding just the right book for their needs.

The sign was turned to closed, although she never locked it until she left the shop area for either outside or upstairs, so the tinkle of the bell on the door did not startle her.

"Closed for lunch break," she called from behind the till, looking for a note from a customer who called in looking for a used copy of _Dubliners_ for his daughter.

"Ms. Moore?"

She perked up, frowning. The voice was kind, but firm, clearly on business, but not pushy or demanding.

"Yes," she said, standing straight and looking about for the owner of the voice. "Who's asking?"

An older man rounded the corner and said, "DI Lewis, Oxfordshire Police." He showed his credentials and she nodded. "Do you have a minute?"

"Yes," she said, blinking at him. "How can I help you?"

"It's in connection with a murder case," he said, checking his watch. "Is there somewhere we could talk? I have a colleague coming soon."

She checked the clock and said, "Tell you what, let's go up to my flat. Write a note for your colleague to buzz. I can temporarily unlock this door from up there."

She passed Lewis a pen and pad of paper, and he snagged a piece of binding tape to stick it up with. She locked the door and led the kindly policeman upstairs, offering him a cup of tea, which he accepted. She prepared the tea as he glanced around her cozy flat, almost as stuffed with books as the shop was, with a few overstuffed bits of furniture for her needs, less than she could have got on her budget, but more than enough for her tastes and requirements.

"At a crime scene," he said, "a staged one, we found a receipt for this shop."

"What, like on the ground or something?" she asked, tucking a strand of chestnut brown hair behind her ear as she passed him the cup of tea.

"Actually, it was crumpled and placed on the victim's stomach. Right centered, so we know it was meant to be there."

She winced. He pulled out an evidence bag with the receipt carefully smoothed, although still with evidence of crumpling. It was certainly one of her receipts, time and date stamped, with the product code and price clearly printed. She asked if she could hold the bag and he handed it to her for a closer look.

"Thursday," she muttered. "Erm, I had a late lunch Thursday, so this would have been…just before that. There were two sales, a very chatty, needy sort of young woman, and a man…." She closed her eyes, wincing, trying to remember. There was a buzz and she thought it must be DI Lewis's colleague, so she let him in, sitting again and frowning at the receipt.

"I could give a passable visual description of the woman, she took so much of my time. She's why I had to take such a late lunch, wouldn't make up her mind. The man, though…." She tried to picture his face and came up blank. "I don't know why I can't remember. He…was older. No younger than late forties, I would say. Possibly much older, but when men hit fifty, it gets so hard to say with some of them. Very assured posture, I remember that. Some sort of spectacles. Can't remember if they were sunnies or clear glass, but I do know there was something around the eyes. And…he must have been wearing a scarf or something. I have no memory at all of his chin, or even if he had facial hair."

Lewis nodded, and was about to ask something else when a firm knock on the door announced that his colleague had found her flat. She told the colleague to come in, and she felt her stomach drop when she saw a familiar tall, thin, blond man enter. His eyes widened at the sight of her, and she felt dizzy sitting down.

"Sara," he said, astonished to see her as she was to see him.

"James," she said, quickly preparing his tea so as not to look at him.

James Hathaway, a police officer. In many ways, it suited him, and she had no doubt he was brilliant at his work, but Sara felt a kind of pain, seeing him after so many years, and not in a church. It felt like a personal slight, although she knew it probably wasn't.

"You could try the bank across the way for CCTV," she said warmly to Lewis, not glancing at James as she passed him his tea, but well aware he was still staring at her. "The manager when I moved in let me know they had it, in case I ever needed it for any reason. It faces out and catches the façade of my shop. And the manager who took over after him confirmed he was keeping it up. Dunno how good the quality is, but it's better than my vague description, I'm afraid. I imagine it was the man. Most murderers are men, aren't they?"

"We have reason to believe it was a man, yes," Lewis said, frowning at her slightly, obviously curious how she and James knew each other, but she wasn't biting. She'd finally picked her life back up, and she wasn't falling down the hole again. It wasn't James's fault, she knew, but she blamed him, anyway. And seeing him as a police officer, it made him so much easier to blame. "Do you know what he bought?"

"Erm…"

She looked at the product code, but it didn't jog her memory straight off. She held up a finger and retreated to her filing cabinet, pulling out the product code inventory, which she kept in a binder. She flipped through for the right section, and it only took a quick glance at the middle of the page to recall the small, frustrating tiff she'd had with the customer. He was a man of few words, but of very firm ideas.

Sara dropped the binder as though it were a snake trying to bite her, and both men looked at her with astonishment and confusion. She felt her hands begin to tremble, staring down at the book.

"This is about the little girl," she whispered. "On the radio, they said a little girl had been found dead behind the Covered Market, and had anyone seen anything between certain hours. Someone must have raped and killed her and left the receipt, mustn't they?"

The men were silent, but she knew. Otherwise, why leave the receipt?

"What makes you say so, Sara?" James asked, his voice soft, gentle, warm. He was concerned about her, and she was too shaken to be angry at him for it.

Sara rubbed the back of her neck with trembling hands, trying to hide them from view, but she imagined the rest of her was trembling, too. She looked at Lewis and said, "He bought a book…a rather poor annotation of a famous work of literature. I recall which edition because he bought it new. I only carry the book because it was annotated by a stuffed shirt at Merton College and he requires it of his undergrads every term. Not even his area of study, he just loved the book. Anyway, it's so poor, it's my most popular book for the…student plan I offer."

"Student plan?" Lewis prompted, and Sara smiled weakly, sitting down before she did something stupid like keeling over.

"Students are often poor, Inspector. Many have limited space, and don't want to house years' worth of books in their digs. So, if it's not something they want to keep, they can sell it back, whatever the condition. I give them a fair price for their re-sale, and some books are in good enough condition, I can sell them again. If not, I donate them or keep them for my personal library. Anyway, this book is so commonly sold back, that since the first time I sold them, people only buy the used copies, and I put every copy on the shelf again. They fill them with lecture notes, hints for how to handle the tutor, snarky remarks about the text or the annotations of their tutor. At the least, it's entertaining, and sometimes they're quite helpful to future students. I haven't moved a new copy of that book in years, and whenever someone comes in to buy it, student or otherwise, I direct them to the used copies. But this man, he insisted. Wouldn't hear of anything else, wouldn't take a different edition, and certainly wouldn't have it used."

"The book?" James asked. "What's the book?"

Sara closed her eyes.

"Nabokov," she said derisively. " _Lolita_."

The silence was solemn, but when she opened her eyes again, she saw Lewis looked confused, like he was trying to place the title.

"It's about a pedophile," James said softly, "who falls in love with a young girl of twelve, marries her mother, and when her mother dies, carries on a relationship with the daughter."

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Sara said coldly, "but yes, that's the general idea. A story of a man sexually obsessed with youth. There's a blow-by-blow of his plans of drugging her up so she doesn't notice a thing, so he can maintain her purity, but the drugs aren't what he thinks. He thinks they're supposed to be barbiturates, but the doctor must have thought he was neurotic, because they were hardly anything at all."

Both men thanked her, Lewis gave her his card if she remembered anything else, and he said he'd talk to the bank before going back to the station, and he'd meet James there. James lingered – of course he lingered – and Sara persisted in not looking at him. After what seemed like the longest silence there had ever been between them, he finally spoke.

"You're not in academia, I see."

"You're not in the church," she said sharply.

Another silence, and she didn't look at him, but she hoped he was at least mildly ashamed of himself. She hoped he understood how furious she was, even if he didn't know all of why.

"How long?" she snapped.

"Sorry?"

"How long did you go that path before deciding to swap careers?"

She heard him inhale deeply, and on the exhale, he said, "I stayed in seminary for a year."

"One year?" she whispered, trying to understand the words. One year. What could that mean?

"Your doctorate?" he asked.

"One year?" she repeated, finally looking up at him.

James blinked at her, as though in turning to face him, the room had gone brighter and his eyes were adjusting.

"Did you finish it?" he asked, his pale eyes searching her face.

"No," she said coolly. "No, I was about a week from finishing when I gave it up. One bloody year?" She inhaled a shaking breath and closed her eyes. Before he could speak again, she quickly said, "Get out of my flat, James." He hesitated, not moving. "Go."

He did leave her, without another word, without anything in parting. But when she opened her eyes, she saw he'd left his card on her table, with his contact details, information she'd wished for all those years when she'd cried herself to sleep for weeks in a row.

She pulled out her lighter, lit the edge of his card, and watched the flame as the edges melted, the words and numbers disappearing under the glow.

/-/

James stared at a box on his bedroom shelf, a very basic shoebox he'd had for years now, nearly sixteen years. He rubbed his forehead, the memories now unfolding easily, where that morning they'd been inaccessible. Sara, laughing and laying back on fresh-mown grass with her chestnut-brown hair splayed about her head, sun dancing on her skin and hair and teeth and eyes. Sara, laying on the library floor an hour from closing, staring at the ceiling with her hair splayed out about her head, all around the dark carpeting, softly reciting Milton for his approval. Sara, on a cream-colored bed in naught but skin, face flushed and hair splayed over the sheets as she reached up to pull him closer, into another kiss….

He gasped, trying to focus on anything in the present, to forget, to remind himself it had all been years ago, and she clearly hated him now. He couldn't understand why she hated him so much, as he thought they'd parted on good terms, but she seemed terribly bitter he was a policeman and not a priest.

James wondered why she hadn't finished her doctorate when it had been her most passionate wish in the world, especially if she'd truly come so close. A bookshop, though, especially the one he'd walked through to reach the stairs to her flat…. It suited her.

His phone rang, and he half-wished it was her, telling him she wasn't angry, and she wanted to talk, and explain why she'd been ice with him that afternoon. He reached up to let his fingers graze the corner of the old shoebox before he glanced at his phone.

Lizzie.

"Hello?" he said, answering.

"Hey, we've got another body found. They would have given it to someone else, but there's a highly probable connection."

James winced, checking his watch. It was late, but he took down the address and said he'd be there shortly.

It was a short drive, not ten minutes, and he looked around the street just outside Merton College, frowning at the body.

"Margaret Tresdale," Lizzie said when James arrived, Robbie already there, probably coming in with Laura when they got the call. "Age twenty. A classmate found her, coming in from a meeting with a tutor. Said she would have been coming back from volunteering her shift at a women's clinic. It's walking distance, she probably did it all the time."

James frowned. Apart from the hair color, which looked similar in this light, he couldn't see any connection between Margaret Tresdale and Katie Davies. The bodies both had ripped clothing and he thought he could see signs of strangulation. But what was the highly probably connection?

"Both strangulation," Laura said, standing and stepping over the body to chat with them. "Exterior signs of sexual trauma, but not as obvious. Torn panties, but no blood or other obvious fluids. It will take a postmortem to know much more on that. I've ordered a tox screen on the girl, and I'll get one for Margaret as well. But as this was on her route, and as she couldn't have been dead more than an hour, I expect there won't be anything on her, where there might have been with the girl."

James took the evidence bag from Lizzie, shining his torch on it, the page of a book, chapter six, about a young-looking whore named Monique. Notes all along the side, including a few deriding the annotations at the bottom.

 _Lolita_. One of Sara's student copies, it would seem.

"The rest of the book's in her bag," Lizzie said. "The killer must have torn a page, crumpled it. Classmate confirms it's one of their required texts for a Professor Charles Dowler, the editor of the edition. Said Maggie was a favorite of Dowler, but hated the book. They all hated it, apparently."

"You won't find barbiturates in Maggie," James said softly. "Lolita was a twelve-year-old child the narrator tried to drug so he could touch her. Katie Davies was twelve. Monique, the prostitute on these pages, is an eighteen-year-old whore who willingly tried to be younger for the narrator, for money. Maggie is twenty, you said. I would propose the allusion is Maggie came willingly, and he had and killed her without the use of drugs. The women's clinic?"

"Twenty-four hour," Lizzie said. "A lot of female students volunteer there."

"Get a statement, and see if her classmate can give you Maggie's schedule, talk to the porter, get a list of friends and classmates. Robbie and I are going to check in on this clinic."

It was a nice night and a relatively short walk, and both men agreed it would be useful to take the route Maggie Tresdale probably took. James supposed he would send Robbie to ask Sara about Maggie, in the morning. She'd made it quite clear she didn't want to see James again, and as strange and painful as it felt, he would try to respect her wishes.

The clinic was a surprisingly upscale building, and he supposed they'd got money from a wealthy donor or two. It didn't seem to be a medical clinic, strictly, and he stopped in his tracks before he'd even gone halfway from the front door to the front desk.

"Gentlemen," Sara said, looking at them, wide-eyed, from the other side of the desk. "Well, I'm not quite sure how you knew to find me here, but…was there something else?"

"In a manner of speaking," Robbie said, and James forced his feet forward, his eyes glued to her, his heart pounding in his throat, in his ears, in his fingertips. "We're actually here on another case, possibly connected. Seeing you again is just a pleasant surprise, Ms. Moore."

"I see," she said, her marbled green eyes meeting his gaze for a small moment. They were darker than he'd remembered, without the laughter and the confidence, the sparkle of someone self-assured and alive. Instead, they were covered with a veil, closed away, and he could almost feel their pain in the base of his throat.

What had happened to her?

"Margaret Tresdale," James said softly, and she frowned, meeting his gaze again.

"What about her?"

"She's been found murdered," Robbie said, "just outside her college. Dead no more than an hour."

Sara stared at them, between them, and rubbed the back of her neck for a moment before she said, to a girl coming out of an office, "Missy, take the desk, will you? I need to talk with these gentlemen privately. Tea, either of you?"

They both nodded, and she led them to a conference room, popping out for a moment and returning with a tea tray.

"We keep the kettle hot," she said, pouring and preparing with her exquisite memory, not having to ask even Robbie how he took his tea. "One never knows, here, who we'll get and when. The other day, we had a whole battered family, sans father, six people. Ate us clean out of biscuits, had to send Maggie to my flat for more. It was the only thing I could think of. Erm, right, tea. Biscuits? No, right. Sorry, this isn't Maggie's usual shift, but as a shift manager, I knew her pretty well. She would take different shifts different terms, as her schedule demanded. It's not uncommon with students."

"She'd been here tonight?" Robbie asked.

"Yes," Sara said, rubbing her eyes. "Erm, I didn't see her. I just got in half an hour ago. Jenna, the last manager, let her leave early. Probably has an early tutorial. It's not uncommon. We're having a mercifully slow night. Missy will have her clock-out time in the log book. I can have her copy the page for you before you go, if you'd like."

They said they would, and James asked what other information they had on Maggie Tresdale at the clinic, and what sort of work did she do.

Sara looked at him, silent, pursed lips, for a very long moment, before she looked down at her hands.

"She's a liaison," Sara said. "The clinic works with battered women and their children, assaulted women and children, molested and raped women and children. Many of the volunteers work here because they've been a victim, or someone in their family has, and so we require all volunteers to undergo counseling on site with our pro bono psychologists. We have the option of group therapy and individual. Individual records aren't in the files, but psychologist notes are in files of girls who undergo group therapy. We can check Maggie's file. I think she was in group therapy. If she was, it'll have the list of girls in her group, and any notes her psychologist made."

"Your file is…?" Robbie asked, half-smiling.

James was grateful Robbie asked, because he'd been curious, and he didn't know how she'd react, had he asked.

Sara rubbed her eyes again and said, "Very bare-bones. I do individual sessions. Students are usually the ones who opt for group therapy. And just because we all must do therapy to work here, Inspector, does not mean we all have something to say to a therapist."

He might have believed her, had James not seen the change in her eyes from when they were younger. Whatever it was, she had something to say to a therapist, and he found he was annoyed she didn't have psychologist notes in her file, as she didn't seem likely to tell him what happened to her.

"What sort of person was Maggie?" James asked.

"Oh, I didn't know her as well as Jenna did," Sara said, rubbing her temples. "I can give you Jenna's card as well. Erm, not a local girl. From somewhere around Brighton, I think. Studying literature. Lots of literature students here. Don't ask me to speculate why – I've tried, but I can't begin to guess." James recognized a lie from her, but he said nothing. "Vibrant sort of girl. Young for her age. Very good with children. That woman who came in with five children, they were all quite, quite young. And when I was getting the mother situated, she brought in the extra biscuits and played with them, managed them so easily. Athletic. She…. She'd been involved with something at a very high level of competition. I don't remember if it was swimming or athletics, but I think she was even at the Commonwealth Games. Erm…she'd done something else as a child, wanted to go to the Olympics in it, but I can't remember…. Cycling, maybe, or equestrian. She got weeded out young, though, and changed. I think she's a swimmer. Lord, Missy might remember. They're both at Merton College. Might even be in the same group therapy."

Sara couldn't think of anything else she knew about Maggie Tresdale, but assured Robbie she'd call him if she thought of more. Copies were made of the log book back two weeks, as well as everything in Maggie's file. They thanked her, and James lingered again, trying to decide whether to mention the book page to her, but she stared back at him and he thought of the shoebox, of the way she'd felt beneath him on that cream-colored bed as she pulled him closer for a kiss. His insides seemed to squirm and seize, and yet the look she gave him now, in the clinic lobby, was cold and empty.

Not Sara. Not his Sara.

He said goodnight and she said nothing back as he walked away.

/-/

Robbie sat down with Jenna, the shift manager, the following morning over a cup of tea at her farmhouse. She was a stern woman in her forties, childless and widowed, but without the look of someone with regrets. She told him how Maggie had been on her latest shift, how long she'd known Maggie, who some of her friends were at the clinic, and all about her studies.

"Her tutor was someone called…. Professor Charles Dowler?" Robbie said, glancing back over his notes.

Jenna hummed, frowning at her own cup of tea.

"Yes, at Merton. Anthony Graves, the Warden of Merton, he has been instrumental in keeping Dowler at the college."

Robbie frowned at the bitterness in her voice and asked what she meant.

Jenna explained that Dowler was a well-known womanizer, and many of the girls at the clinic were his purported victims.

"Trouble is," she said, "we've never had a solid enough case to prove anything, and he's so brilliant, Graves thinks the sun shines out of his every orifice. We had Sara and Maggie handle him whenever we had complaints. Maggie was a favorite of his, and of Dowler's, and Graves is so pomp. One of those equestrian types, wants so bad to be posh. Never misses a chance to exchange correspondence with Sara. And she was a former of his. No, wait, of Dowler's."

He sat up straighter, stunned.

"Dowler?" he said. "She studied under Dowler?"

"Well, she did her undergraduate work at Cambridge," Jenna said with a smirk. "Triple starred first with bells on." Robbie nodded. That must have been how she and James knew each other, as they looked about the same age. "I don't remember what college. Anyway, she did her graduate work at Oxford. Did her Master of Studies in English, and nearly finished her Doctorate under Dowler, when she left off. She doesn't talk about it, but I'm sure she'd have discussed it with her psychologist. She does the individual sessions. Got the bookshop eleven years gone, and has been serving all sorts – with special student arrangements – ever since. Has worked at the clinic since then, too."

Robbie took notes, looking them over, thanking Jenna for all her helpfulness, leaving his card. He had words to have with the Chief Super.

/-/

Sara turned over on her bed and looked at her bookshelf just above it, a line of blue books – the complete works of Milton, and staring at the empty space in the middle before rolling back over to her nightstand and letting her fingers trace on the spine of her favorite volume – _De doctrina christiana_ , On Christian Doctrine. Over £300 for just this volume, a graduation present. The inscription on the inside cover said there was one hundred for each first, and that her father had allowed him to get her this one, as her father had bought the rest of the set for the graduation present.

She had the inscription memorized, ever curve and cross of every letter, but especially the words "All my love, always," at the bottom, and James's sloping signature. Those words had been a torture and a comfort for sixteen years, and now she didn't know what they meant. When she could imagine him as a priest somewhere, leading lost souls to his god, the words had meaning. She didn't always like the meaning, but it existed as a fixed reality. Now she knew he'd been a policeman for most of that time, she didn't know what they were, what they'd meant then or what they could possibly mean now.

Sara had thrown many things in anger, but never a book. Pillows, glasses, a skillet, even one of James's shoes, once. He'd laughed at her, and then she'd laughed, and to this day she couldn't remember what she'd been so angry about. But never a book.

Now, staring at the volume, she had an almost overwhelming urge to hurl the book across her small bedroom, to make it feel a fraction of the pain she'd suffered, to have the signature be less than perfect when she opened it up again, to have the letters on the inscription be knocked about so they formed different words, words she could understand.

But she knew those words would not change, and the signature was fixed, and potentially damaging her favorite book would not change the way she felt, or the impossible words he'd written sixteen years gone.

"All my love, always."

/-/

As soon as Robbie explained where they were with the cases to CS Moody, as soon as he said their bookshop owner worked with the second dead girl, and the author of this book was both women's tutor, Moody instructed him to have Lizzie bring in Ms. Sara Moore for questioning. She was put in the interview room, and Robbie was just about to go in when James stopped him in the corridor.

"You're going to interrogate Sara?" he said, his voice tight, almost urgent. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You knew her at school," Robbie said. "It's a conflict of interest. It's probably nothing, James, but if it's not, Moody wants your nose clean. You can watch. You know her better than the rest of us. Watch on the other side of the glass, see what you make of her answers. Besides, she doesn't seem to like you right now, does she?" James flinched. "She may say more to someone else."

James said nothing, but he went to the observation room and Robbie sighed, wondering what had gone on between those two causing so much negative emotion, seemingly on both parts. He sat down across from Sara Moore, turning on the tape and opening his notes.

"Interview conducted at 12:32 by DI Robbie Lewis," he said. "Please state your name for the record."

She stared at the tape for a long moment before he nodded her on. She swallowed visibly before she said, "Lady Adabelle Camellia Sarika Mellor-Potts, Countess Matsbury."

Robbie blinked, puzzled. Everybody involved in the case, including James, had called her Sara, Sara Moore. It said Sara Moore on her business cards, and mentioned nothing about her being a countess. She folded her hands and looked up at him.

"Right," he said softly. "Let's…start at the beginning, then, shall we?"

"The beginning?" she whispered. "How far back is the beginning, Inspector? When you showed up in my bookshop the other day? When I first met Margaret Tresdale?"

"Further back," Robbie said. "I want to start with Professor Charles Dowler."

She whimpered, rubbing her eyes, looking so in pain. It only lasted a matter of moments before she took a deep breath, sat up straighter, and said, "Right, we have to go further back than that, then," she sighed. "If it's going to make any sense, how any of it happened, we have to go back before I knew him." Robbie nodded, scratching his jaw.

"My father introduced me to literature young," she said. "He was obsessed, particularly, with Milton, and he passed this on to me. Doctrinally. The living on our land, Inspector, had been Anglican from time immemorial. Well, since the beginning of the Anglican church, anyway. Probably Roman Catholic, prior. He…made it Methodist, following his interpretation of Milton. Anyway, it was my lifelong dream to earn my doctorate in English, dedicating my life to the study of Milton, maybe become a professor."

"Why didn't you?" he asked. "And what do I call you, Countess?"

She cleared her throat and said, "Just Sara. Everybody calls me Sara, always have. A few stuffy people, and my mother, called me Adabelle, and a few very dear people, like…like my father, called me Ada." She glanced at the recording and frowned. "But everybody else calls me Sara. And Moore is my mother's maiden name, before you ask. Always liked it better than Mellor-Potts. Anyway, I was well on my way. I'd earned a place at Cambridge, studied English Literature."

"Triple starred first with bells on," Robbie said, recalling Jenna's words, and Sara hummed.

"I took a philosophy course – philosophy of Protestantism or something like that. It was cross-listed with Theology and I met this boy…my very first term." She closed her eyes. "He was brilliant. Dreamed of being a priest the way I dreamed of being an academic."

Robbie shifted, realizing she was talking of James. Apparently, he was going to get the story after all.

"Three years at Cambridge, and we were inseparable," she said, eyes still closed, her voice tightening. "I don't quite know how it happened, but I fell in love with him. I thought…. Well, at the time, I might have said we fell in love with each other. But you see, god played a very cruel trick on me. I would have followed James anywhere, given up anything and everything to follow him anywhere. But he went to seminary – the one place I could never follow. And he could have easily followed me, joined me in my life, my postgraduate studies at Oxford, but he never would have given up his dream. So, I told myself that was just the way it had to be, and I tried not to be bitter about it. Did my Master of Studies in English from 1550 to 1700, went straight into the Doctorate under the very smarmy but admittedly brilliant Professor Dowler.

"I lived in this student house in Oxford. I hate Belleperenne Manor, always have, and I could afford to pay my share in a student house, easily. Shared it with a girl who never spoke to anyone and these two very kind blokes studying Classics. They did some of my Greek translation editing for me. I never mastered Greek.

"I was already what one might call depressed, but I told myself James was happier at seminary than I could ever make him, that we were both following our dreams, and everything was fine. And then my parents died in a boating accident and I became a bloody countess and I took to drink. Just a little at first, but…. Well, I've never been very good at doing things by halves.

"Most nights, I don't remember. I would go out, get wasted, black out, often pass out somewhere along the way back to the house. The blokes, Christopher and Simon, they usually found me on their way in for the night, and they'd carry me back in, unlock my room, tuck me in, leave the key on the bedside, and not mention it. Our little routine, for almost three years. And then I was…I was almost two weeks away from finishing. Everything was done, it just had to be approved by my tutor and then defended."

She began to tremble, looking at everything in the room but Robbie for about three seconds at a time, unable to settle on anything. Her voice grew tighter and tighter as she spoke.

"I don't remember anything," she finally choked out. "I just…woke up one morning, and I was in my bed, but I wasn't tucked in. And the key wasn't on the table, but in my hand. And I asked Christopher at breakfast why the change, and he said he didn't know what I was talking about, that when they came home the night before, I'd already been in bed. I realized someone else must have found me, someone who knew where I lived, maybe even knew which room was mine, and I thought the best. I really tried.

"But in my class, I…. Dowler was being his usually inappropriate, flirtatious self. And I ignored it, until he…started dropping these heavy hints, things about what I could do for him to ensure a position at the university when I finished. It wasn't hard to get the picture, sexual favors, but then he started hinting at…at marriage. Lots of people fancy themselves earls, as though it's something glamorous." Her face twitched. "I knew he must have…. The hints were too strong, too much, more than anything he'd tried on before and I was a mess. I thought about reporting him, but who would listen? Dowler's always had Professor Graves in his pocket, and I had no proof. I couldn't just give him what he wanted, and I couldn't guarantee what would happen with my degree if I tried to go forward without giving in, so I…I left. One week out from my defense, I left the university, bought the bookshop from a man who was retiring, moved into the flat, started working at the clinic, and my sessions have been focused on quitting drinking. It's hard, but I've gone three months now without a drop."

Robbie nodded, feeling a heaviness in his chest. She talked through meeting Maggie a year ago, and her movements since he and James came to the shop. She accounted for her whereabouts – without extremely solid alibis for either murder – and she said softly, "Apologise to James for me, will you?"

"What for?" he asked.

Sara rubbed her arms and frowned at the recorder, but didn't ask him to turn it off.

"I was beastly to him. I'm still angry, but…. I know it's not rational. You see, even though I know it's ridiculous, I keep telling myself if he'd just called me when he left seminary, if we could have at least stayed friends, maybe I never would have started drinking, or maybe he would have found an answer and kept me in my degree. They were my choices, I know. I ruined my own life, but it doesn't change the feeling it's his fault, that he should have…should have just…done _something_." She hesitated. "Why did he leave seminary?"

Robbie inhaled, thinking of the case with the young man who killed himself to expose the pious, anti-homosexual group that had ruined his life. James's friend. And now another friend – maybe more than a friend – had spiraled and blamed him. Would James blame himself? Was he still watching?

"You'll have to ask him that yourself," he said softly. "Interview terminated at 1:26."

/-/

James clenched his hands into fists, standing in the observation room, wondering why his pulse wouldn't slow. Sara even said, she knew what happened to her wasn't his fault, and yet here he stood, thinking of all the things he could have done. If he'd called her when he left the seminary…. But then, he couldn't have possibly done right away, and by the time he read of her parents dying, it hadn't occurred to him. He was already on his training course, too busy, and assumed she would be busy as well.

If he'd called, if he'd found a way to go to the funeral or drop by the manor or something….

He closed his eyes and could so easily picture her beneath him on the cream-colored sheets, reaching up to pull him closer. If she'd told him sixteen years ago, if she'd told him how badly she wanted him to go with her to Oxford, maybe he would have considered it longer, put off going to seminary….

But those were mistakes he had to make, and it might have hurt her more if she'd said and he left anyway. As much as James knew there was no point running back over the past, looking for an answer that would have spared her, he couldn't seem to stop.

Robbie came in, patted his shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked.

But James couldn't answer, because he didn't know.

/-/

Robbie and James went into the corridor and nearly plowed into Lizzie, who was hurrying their way with a note.

"Sorry," James said, helping her catch her balance. "What's that?"

"Another death," she said darkly. "Definitely connected somehow. Merton College."

"Another student?" Robbie asked.

"Professor," she read off the paper. "Professor Charles Dowler."

Robbie raised his eyebrows at James who inhaled a deep, shaking breath.

"Have the Custody Sergeant delay her," he said to Lizzie. "Keep her here until we know what we're dealing with."

/-/

James took in the office of a man whose name had taken on a mythic, villainous quality over the past few days, mildly surprised to see it as an office typical of an Oxford professor, stuffed with books and trinkets, with a wholly disorganized desk and ridiculously expensive furniture. He walked through from the front to an attached sitting room, where Charles Dowler was sprawled on the floor. Some disorganization of books, perhaps someone searching and perhaps a struggle. Lizzie was talking with the man who found him – the college warden, Professor Anthony Graves.

Graves was a typical elderly, talkative man, probably in his seventies, maybe late sixties. Active, in good shape, but wearing the tweeds and all. While Charles Dowler might have been somewhere between fifty and fifty-five, he was young-looking, young-dressing, even young-grooming – his hair styled not dissimilarly to James's.

"The others were staged, but this certainly seems to be a crime of passion," Laura said from the floor beside the corpse. "Bludgeoned to death, possibly after a few drinks. He put up a fight, but not a very good one. Caught off guard, and possibly intoxicated. I'll know more later."

"Could it have been a woman?" James asked softly, thinking of Sara's story.

"If he was drunk and she was strong, yes," Laura said. "And before you ask, No more than half an hour ago. Body's very fresh."

"Can't have been Sara, then," Robbie said. "She was talking to me at the time, she's been at the station."

"Have Lizzie call back to the station," James said softly. "Sara Moore is free to go."

He looked about the room, checking the bookshelves, frowning at a copy of Milton's _De doctrina christiana,_ the same blue cover of the one James had bought for Sara all those years ago. He still remembered every word he wrote, a brief explanation of why he bought her something so expensive, and a sign off, the only thing he left her when he went to seminary.

All my love, always.

Even as he thought he'd never touch her again, as he thought he was putting aside all future worldly pleasures, he'd meant each word and considered staying.

He turned away from the book, focusing on the desk. Essays, paperwork, a letter from someone in the physics department about college business. A few books. Countless pointless trinkets, a copy of his edition of _Lolita_.

He opened a drawer and found basic office supplies, a set of hideously expensive pen, a few signed copies of his book. The next drawer down had his diary, a very thick appointment book, lecture notes for the following week he seemed to be reviewing, and a small, old black journal. He pulled it out, flipping through the pages.

Initials, dates going back almost twenty years, places in and around the university, numbers up to about fifty and fractioned out to the tenths place. With a shaking hand, he went back about eleven years, and it did not take him long to find an entry:

 _La. A. C. S. M. P.; 5.15.2006; Ship St.; 48.7_

James shivered and found an entry that could have been Margaret Tresdale, and another corresponding to Katie Davies. The place for Katie's entry was just "van."

He showed the book to Robbie, whose eyes widened at how full the thing was, and how obscure.

"Good God," Robbie said. "There must be hundreds of entries here. Sara wasn't kidding."

"Sara?" Professor Graves said, brightening. "Forgive me, do you speak of Countess Matsbury?"

The old man had the doting posture of an old uncle, or even a grandfather, and James almost laughed. He couldn't imagine how much she hated being called Countess Matsbury, after how much she detested being called Adabelle Mellor-Potts every time a teacher called roll.

"Yes," Robbie said, showing the professor the book. The man's eyes darkened knowingly. "She and some others at the women's clinic suggested you might be sheltering the man from justice and scandal. Good of the college?"

"In a way," Professor Graves said, glancing at the other room, where Dowler was on the floor. "He…. Oh, forgive me, I'm not wearing gloves."

"We'll take your prints for elimination anyway," Robbie said, nodding him on.

"Well, truth is, Charles was brilliant. Bit of an arse at times, you know, but it can't be helped in this business. And most of the students he became…involved with were largely willing. Especially when he started out, Inspector, Charles cut a dashing figure, and could be quite charming. I spoke with Lady Adabelle, but she had no proof, you know. Never did."

"His fascination with Nabokov?" James said, raising his eyebrows. "That didn't trouble you?"

"Why is that?" Graves asked, puzzled. "Even the most focused of academics have their side-projects, and really, it isn't as though it were some…modern author. Nabokov is highly celebrated. It's part of why I liked Charles. Nabokov comes into my purview, you see."

"Did you assign his edition?" Robbie asked, eyebrows up. "Only Sara Moore mentioned it wasn't a very well-regarded edition."

Graves grinned and said, "Beautiful and brilliant, Countess Matsbury. She's quite right, of course. Oh, it's passable, but not really up to his usual standard. But we didn't take it too hard. Every academic has a flop. That it was outside his usual field helps excuse it more readily than someone having a flop in their specialty. You know, he was a Milton expert, like Lady Adabelle. I so looked forward to her dissertation, to see what beautiful work she could have produced. A truly exceptional mind."

James frowned, thinking of all the afternoons they'd spent in her room, or in his, or on the lawn, or by the river, or even at the manor. He would meet with her on Saturdays after his rowing practice and they would rest by the river, her scrutinizing his essays for philosophical flaws, him checking her translations of Milton's Latin for errors. When they finished, or grew bored or distracted they would stop, and she would sit on his lap, or between his legs, and he would surrender to the comforting warmth of her body resting against his, the way her hair smelled of old books and roses, the impossible burning that followed everywhere her lips trailed on his face and neck.

To say she was an exceptional mind did not begin to cover her best attributes, and James hated that everywhere he turned in this case, that shoebox seemed to be, taunting him in ways it had not for some years now.

"Thank you, Professor Graves," Robbie said. "Let us know if you think of anything else, will you? Where can we reach you if you're not in college?"

"Oh, my wife and I have a farm," he said brightly, giving the address. "She runs stables out of it. Never content to be an academic's wife, always had to push herself to new heights. She was a champion rider, in her day."

James had stopped listening, looking instead at the little black book in his hands. The proof Sara had lacked, the clinic had lacked, for years, in his hands. If there were some way….

He slipped it in an evidence bag and wondered how he would face her, when this was all over, to try to apologise. It was the least he could do.

/-/

Sara curled up on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest and closing her eyes. They hadn't described the scene where Dowler had been found, but she knew his office, and she knew him, and the words Blunt Force Trauma were enough to give her an idea. Inspector Lewis told her they suspected he may have killed the other two girls and had been then killed by a potential victim. As she'd considered it a few times after her incident, it wouldn't surprise her if this scenario turned out true.

She stretched out again, stretching her arms and touching the book on her bedside table, opening the front cover just enough to see the inscription. She'd given him a complete collection of John Donne, written her inscription on the bookmark, in case he didn't want to bring a loving inscription with him to seminary. He probably hadn't even kept it, or had lost it somewhere along the years.

The way he'd kissed her when she gave him that book, she half-thought he would stay with her. He had stayed the night, one last night before he left, and every time he inhaled she hoped the exhale would bring good news – that he loved her too much to leave. She hoped Inspector Lewis had passed along her apology, as Sara was almost certain James would never speak to her again.

/-/

James walked with Robbie along the streets, between the crime scenes, trying to find some way to fit the routes of the killer with the diary of Charles Dowler, but it was going poorly. And even more stressful was Robbie kept bringing up Sara.

"Are you going to accept her apology?" Robbie asked.

"It would have been easier if she'd said it to my face," James said stiffly, not sure what he would have said, had she done such a thing. "Hard to talk through things when one person isn't even willing to speak with you."

"Did you love her?"

James paused, looking up at the moon. He thought of the shoebox, of her fingers in his hair, of how much his father adored her, of how much he respected her father. Nell had said at the time, it should have been simple. Somehow, James had a way of complicating things everybody else thought were simple.

"I still do," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Told her I always would. Doubt she believes me, even if she did then."

Robbie looked frustrated as he said, "Well, why didn't you give up the church then? You gave it up anyway. Seems to me, she was worth fighting for if you loved her that much."

"Seems to everybody," James said, rubbing his jaw. "Most difficult choice I ever had to make. I regretted not going to her father's funeral. He was a great man, if a bit…eccentric."

Robbie's phone went off and James paused, and somehow from the increasingly alarmed look on Robbie's face, he knew something was terribly wrong.

"At the shop?" Robbie asked.

James took off running, without a second thought, as fast as his legs could carry him.

She couldn't be dead. Not now, not after…. She couldn't.

/-/

Sara coughed, trying to cover her mouth and nose with her sleeve as she searched for the source of the flames. She knew she was supposed to leave the building with a fire, especially one this size, but she couldn't stand the thought of leaving without trying to put it out herself. How many books would she lose if she didn't make her best effort?

She turned a corner in the stacks and found a flare of heat like a wall, taking a stumbling step backward as she tried to see a good way to combat it. The flames were higher on the shelf than she was tall, seeming to arc between the shelves like serpent's tongues darting out in a kind of kiss. Before she decided what to do, as the smoke stung her eyes, she heard breaking glass, and the door to the shop opened.

"Ada!" James was crying out over the roaring of the flames. "Ada!"

She opened her mouth to answer but only coughing came out as she tried to find something to at least smother some of the flames with. If she could save just one book….

He must have followed the sound of her coughing, because she could see him approaching as she looked for a blanket or tarp she could use, finding nothing.

"What are you doing?" he cried.

"The books," she said, "I have to save the books."

"Ada, leave it! The firemen are on their way!"

"James, I need to save the books!"

She was crying, and he must understand how important this was, but instead of helping her put out the flames, he wrapped his arms around her, steady and strong as she remembered, and tried to pull her out of the shop.

"No," she whimpered. "No, the books."

"I'm not letting you die," he yelled, and in a fit of frustration, he lifted her off her feet, despite her struggles, and carried her awkwardly out of the shop, holding her back when he got her out to the street as she tried to make a dash for the shop again.

"No," he said sternly, holding her tight until she stopped fighting, resting her head on his chest and crying. Inspector Lewis was approaching on foot. "It's alright. It's going to be alright."

"The books," she whimpered, trembling.

"Can be replaced," he whispered back. "You can't."

Perhaps it was the smoke inhalation, but Sara thought, for a moment, he'd spoken to her the way he had when they were young, when she never doubted he loved her. The world seemed to move in slow motion as the firemen came, put out the flames, told Inspector Lewis it was certainly arson and they managed to save about three-quarters of the books. The upstairs was not impacted.

As all this blended together in a blur of time and space, James continued to hold her tightly to his chest, smoothing her hair. After a long, long time, she pressed her hands against his chest and began to cry.

/-/

James took Sara to a hotel using Lizzie's car, which Lizzie said not to worry about, as Laura was coming to pick up Robbie and could drop her off on the way back.

"I don't want to go to a hotel," Sara said softly, staring blankly out the windscreen.

"You don't want to go to Belleperenne, either," he said, rubbing at a warm spot on his cheek. He knew it was in his head, but it wouldn't seem to go cool again. "It's just for a night, until the scene can be processed. I'll be right next door, the hotel promised. Did you check the bag?"

The firemen were kind enough to send someone up to the flat and get a bag of things she requested, as she hadn't thought of grabbing when she was too busy trying to save her books.

"Yeah, it's all there," she said. The sigh escaping her lips spoke of regret she couldn't pack seventy-five percent of a bookshop in an overnight bag.

"Looks heavy," he said when they pulled into the car park and she heaved it onto her lap.

"It's nothing," she said a bit too quickly, and he tried to sneak a look in the bag when they got out of the car. A book, he would guess from size and shape of the lump in the end of the holdall.

They checked in and got their keys, and walked upstairs to their rooms. James lingered and ran through a list of things he thought would be excusable to ask about, until she became a bit testy and opened her bag to show him what she had. He felt his heart jump into his throat when he saw what was so heavy – _De doctrina christiana_.

He told himself it meant nothing, that it was simply a book she had studied so extensively for so many years and of course she would want it with her in a time of flux in her life. But the words of his inscription screamed out in his mind as though he'd just written them, and he pulled a small black book out of his pocket.

"What's that?" she asked, leaning closer to him. Even through the lingering scent of smoke, he could smell the roses in her hair.

"For you," he said softly. "We've made copies for evidence, done all the fingerprinting. It might prove…useful."

She opened the book, frowning as she tried to work through the code. Once she realized what she was holding her chapped lips formed an 'o' and she looked up at him. A question was in them, but he didn't know what it was, and she didn't speak it. Instead, she told him goodnight without a word of thanks, and he retreated to his own room, feeling a familiar ache in his chest and wishing he could make it go away, because she couldn't possibly feel what he was feeling.

/-/

Sara closed the door to her car. She hated hotel beds – still had a crick in her neck – but James was right, as usual. The last thing she wanted was to spend the night at the manor after so many years away from it. She wished she'd gone back to get her wellies as she stepped into the mud of the drive, but she ignored it. The shoes were old, serviceable shoes, easily replaced. This was more important.

Leave it to James, after how beastly she'd been, to put in her hands the one thing that could salvage her lifelong dream. It would always be tainted, now, but after all the years her father told her it was a good dream, after their last conversation being his saying how proud he was that she was in the program…

"Countess Matsbury?"

Sara gritted her teeth, forcing a smile at Professor Graves. She hated how he insisted on fawning over her title, but if it helped her position, at the moment, she would take it.

"Professor," she said brightly, as though nothing in the world was wrong. She followed him toward the stables. "I, erm, have recently come into possession of something, and I wondered whether we might discuss…reopening my Doctorate, just 'til I can finish the dissertation. It would only be a couple of weeks, long enough for someone to give it a final review and my defending it."

He smiled at her with child-like eagerness and said, "Well, my dear, let's discuss your case."

/-/

Robbie was just finishing reading the report on the fire – arson, but the CCTV from the bank was inconclusive about the person who started it, just the time – when Lizzie knocked on the office door.

"Where's DI Hathaway?" she asked, frowning at the empty desk.

"Sleeping in at the hotel, I imagine," Robbie said, motioning her in. "He wore himself out dragging the countess from her books. She was ready to die trying to save those books, it was really something."

"Yeah," Lizzie said slowly, narrowing her eyes. "We'll want to call him. Positive on the barbiturates in Katie Davies, negative on drugs in Maggie Tresdale. Very high blood alcohol levels for Charles Dowler, but Dowler wasn't our killer, or our rapist."

Robbie dropped the report and sat up straighter.

"What d'you mean?" he demanded. "He had to be, he had a catalogue of the incidents in his desk drawer!"

"Yeah," she said, frowning at the papers she was holding, "but the handwriting analysts are going over the papers, and they said conclusively the handwriting in the black book was not written by Dowler. They did find a match, though, in other papers on his desk."

"Who?" Robbie demanded, already on his feet.

Because whoever else could have written it had to be the killer. It was the only thing that made sense.

/-/

As Graves examined the book, Sara held her breath. If she had Graves's approval, even if she never made the book public (because who could Dowler hurt, now?) but agreed to destroy it as soon as she had her degree in hand, she knew it would happen and the nightmare would mostly be over. That was all she needed.

"Well, it's possible we could come to an arrangement," Graves said solemnly, "but this is not going to be your bargaining chip, Lady Adabelle."

She felt her chest tighten and she frowned, looking down at the book.

"Why not?"

"There is nothing in this book that can be linked definitively to him."

"But it was in his desk."

"And it could just as easily be collection of coded observations as what you have suggested. But we could certainly reach an arrangement, privately, and no one would question your return if I sponsored it. I would certainly be pleased to spend time with you, polishing your dissertation." She took a small step back, realizing he was moving closer, but the stable wall was behind her, and there was no easy way to get away without appearing rude. "And it wouldn't be so bad, really. Just a favor here and there."

"Favor?" she said, feeling her throat tighten. She had a feeling it wasn't the pleasure of inviting someone of her standing to college events, but more the pleasure of inviting her to his bed. She'd seen too many men look at her like that, heard too many stories at the clinic.

He wanted to give her a degree for the price of sex, perhaps forever if he decided on blackmail. Just like Dowler.

"No, thank you," she said tightly, discouraged at the failure after she had so much hope. She wished James hadn't given her the book, wished she'd just believed it impossible. "I'm afraid the price is too steep."

"We could negotiate," he said, coming closer, backing her into the stable. "Although I must warn you, I'm a very stern negotiator. And who knows, you may find the terms more pleasant than you anticipate."

Sara found it difficult to breathe, pushing him back as he approached her, but Graves was stronger than he looked, clearly still in good shape. He put a hand to her throat until she panicked and stopped struggling, and when he let go she collapsed to the ground. He was saying something – unimportant words, and she tried to scramble to her feet, but he kicked her to the ground again, hard, still talking as he unbuckled his trousers.

She reached for the closest thing she could find, something to thrust or swing at him. She heard someone crying out from the drive, a familiar voice but one she couldn't place. Anyway, it was too late.

She saw the surprise on Graves's face as blood trickled from his mouth, the pitchfork she jammed into him going straight through to the other side. He was beginning to collapse when she fell back onto the straw and lost consciousness.

/-/

Robbie and Lizzie called James, told him to find Professor Graves for questioning, and they got a quick warrant from an old friend, took SOCO down to Graves's office to process it, looking for signs of why he would have such a book, and how he'd put it in Dowler's office without them noticing.

"His fingerprints were all over it," she said.

"Yeah," Robbie said bitterly, recalling how the man had _accidentally_ grabbed the book at the crime scene, and then claimed he hadn't meant to. Surely, he must have realized they would have tied a hand-written book to someone other than Dowler. They both had compact writing, but the experts said it wasn't even close as far as letter shaping and formation. "Graves is a good deal older than Dowler. Let's see if there's another volume. And look for a shiny, fresh copy of _Lolita_ , sleeping pills, anything we might match to the other scenes. A diary would be nice, too. When SOCO's done here, let's take them to his house. I've got the address, a farm."

"A horse stables," Lizzie said, checking her notes. "His wife runs a stables. Only I did a check, sir. His wife's been dead for over ten years. He hires in help to run the stables from scholarship students with equestrian experience, like Maggie Tresdale."

"Lemme guess," Robbie said darkly, "all women, and one of his customers was Katie Davies. But this isn't about horses. This all seems to come back to our Countess Matsbury. So, what is his interest in her?"

"She was in the book, sir," Lizzie reminded him.

Robbie felt sick to his stomach as he recalled seeing the more recent pages. James hadn't showed him that bit, but if she was there…. She had no idea her rapist wasn't dead.

/-/

Sara stared blankly ahead of herself, in the interview room again, this time with James. The recording was running, a uniformed copper was by the door, and she supposed someone was watching from the interview window again, but James hadn't even given her time to properly clean her hands, just rinsed a bit of blood off them with a water bottle once her hands had been swabbed and took her straight to the interview room. All she wanted was to go home. What was there left?

Her dream was over. James clearly thought she was an awful person.

She just felt sick and tired.

"Let me tell you how I think it happened," James said coldly. "Maybe Dowler does the first murder, the little girl. We consult you, you find he'd been there, in your shop, that he'd used your shop to maybe draw attention away from himself, or onto you. But you take advantage of the situation."

"No," she said, confused. She's not sure what he's suggesting, but she knew she didn't take advantage of anything.

"Maybe you and Maggie had a row. Maybe you were jealous of her standing with Merton, even after she'd cried rape. Maybe she was changing her tune, and you couldn't stand the thought. Jenna told us you would linger around Merton, introducing yourself to Dowler's students, giving them the information of the clinic to recruit them. How many were really raped, Lady Adabelle?"

"Stop it," she said, feeling a wave of nausea as he called her that. "James, stop it!"

"You couldn't have killed Dowler, you were in here at the time, being questioned, putting on a right show," he said almost spitting in his anger, and she realized he must have been standing on the other side of the window, he must have heard everything she'd said. Another wave of nausea, but he continued to speak even as she felt the room begin to melt and sway and muddle. "You must have had an accomplice, another of his students, or former students you'd coaxed to the clinic, no doubt."

"No," she whispered, rubbing at her eyes.

This wasn't James. This wasn't her James. He'd never raised his voice, not around her and certainly not at her. He'd always been kind and gentle and loving, even when they were fighting about something. Or had she ever known him at all?

"And once you were let out, you set fire to your shop to throw us further off the scent, perhaps rid yourself of some evidence."

At this, she looked at him in astonishment and said through tears, "You're mad! Those books are everything, James! They're all I have left. You know I would never…. I never could…."

She rubbed at her eyes again, but he ignored her words again, ploughing forward.

"But Graves knew too much, didn't he? Knew you from your postgraduate days, knew about your complaints, had followed your progress at the clinic, maybe even had a chat with Maggie about whatever caused you to kill her. So, he had to go, didn't he? You used what I gave you as a pretext to talk to him, maybe offered to sell it back to him to keep safe at a price of getting his silence on your behavior, or even your degree after all these years, and then when he thinks you're bargaining…."

He mimed what she'd done, the ramming through with the pitchfork and Sara gripped at the cold, sterile table, afraid she might keel over again. It felt as though he hadn't just mimed, but that James had really run her through with something. All the things he said, they sounded so horrifically plausible. Especially toward the end, because she had gone to make a deal, an offer of silence about the book if she could just have her doctorate that she'd worked so hard for, so long.

"You really believe I would do that?" she asked softly, looking at his pale eyes. "James, he was hurting me, I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't even fully sure what I'd done until he was dead."

His nostrils flared and she wished he would speak, say something of what was on his mind.

Except when he finally did speak, the words that came out were, "Tell me, was it really a boating accident?"

Sara stood, horrified, and stumbled back toward the wall, ignoring the uniformed copper who moved toward her.

"Oh, go get a bloody glass of water," she snapped at the man, and he hesitated before glancing at James, who paused the interview while the man was gone. But she wasn't done with James just because he put it on pause. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she hissed. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"If you did it," he said softly, "it's my job to break you."

"No," she said, laughing bitterly. "No, I don't believe you. Because you saw, you know it was self-defense. Would you like to see the bruise again, from where he kicked me?" James flinched, but said nothing. "No, you're looking for an excuse for me to hate you, maybe an excuse for why we can never make up after all this is over, so you don't have to talk to me when I'm cleared and the cases are shut. Do you really hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you," he said softly, rubbing his eyes. "I could never hate you, Sara."

"Then _why_?"

"It's my job."

"Not this," she snapped, and he looked at her again, frowning. "Not now. Not what we're standing here doing. Why did you leave me? You told me you loved me, but you left, and when you could come back, you didn't. Were you lying?"

"No," he said firmly, no hesitation. God, she wanted to believe him.

"So, _why_?"

His mouth worked for a moment before he said softly, "We were from different worlds, Sara. We wanted different things. I thought it was for the best."

"How pious of you," she spat, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself tightly. "Always doing what you think is best. All that pipeline from god rubbish. You do remember you're not a priest, don't you? Or did my father's treatises on Protestantism sink in somehow?"

The door had a person in it, and they both expected it to be the uniformed copper with her water, but instead Inspector Lewis entered, putting a whole file down on the table between them.

"Self-defense," he said firmly, clearly angry, and she supposed it had to be with James. "Warden Graves has been systematically raping and abusing students for the past thirty-five years. We found his earlier black book. Only once his wife died eleven years ago, two things happened. He started abusing the students of the stables at his house, and he fancied himself a new wife – Charles Dowler's favorite student, Lady Adabelle."

Sara swallowed, not understanding.

"Your statement said he told you the book wasn't proof," he said, looking at her, and she nodded. "That's because it wasn't in Dowler's handwriting. Our experts discovered, and he knew they would. He had an inkling it might get passed to you or the clinic, and your desperation for completing your degree would bring you to his door, especially after he set fire to your bookshop, although it didn't destroy as much as he'd hoped. So, he offered other favors to earn your degree, knowing the book would never hold up as leverage, but expecting it would give him the opportunity to sexually use you, maybe eventually blackmail you into marriage. Dowler wasn't teasing you because of what he'd done, he was teasing you because of what he knew Graves had done to you. He probably thought he was being kind, offering you an out if you wound up pregnant by Graves, that he would marry you and claim the child as his own. He had a reputation for relationships with students.

"But they were consensual, harmless. The ones who were raped never had evidence, never had a case, because they never remembered. That's because he didn't do it, but Graves took advantage of Dowler's nature to select his victims, drugged them with barbiturates used at the stables if he couldn't find them already drunk and vulnerable. Maggie figured it out, which was why she had to die. She worked at his stables for extra cash, and she'd seen him steal the drugs he'd used on Katie Davies. And he killed Katie because the dosing was wrong. She was unusually resistant to the drug, and between her struggling back and the extra dose, the injuries and drugs shut down her system. But he took the opportunity to draw you into the fray, to try his luck again at the marriage he so wanted, whether you wanted it or not."

Sara sank to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest as she listened. Inspector Lewis explained she would be charged with manslaughter, but any jury worth their salt would happily give her the plea of self-defense, with not a blot on her record. James was silent, as Sara was silent, and she realized this rewrote everything she'd thought of about her life for the past eleven years. No wonder Graves waved off the clinic's accusations against Dowler. How he must have laughed at her!

She rubbed at her cheeks, and when Inspector Lewis asked if she had a solicitor they should call she just nodded, unable to answer. She just stared up at James, expecting his lips to say the apology she saw in his eyes. But he was as silent as she, just staring back at her.

/-/

James couldn't stand going to the courtroom for the sentencing. He sat outside the courthouse with the shoebox on his knees. He had every belief she would get off. The jurors seemed sympathetic to the case, and Robbie had laid down quite a sob story. Her family solicitor was solid gold, and it seemed the prosecution wasn't really trying.

But he couldn't stop feeling anxious. It wasn't really about the case, but about the way he'd spoken to her, the fight they'd had, the things she'd suffered because he'd been too stupid to pick up a phone after he'd left seminary. Pride, plain and simple, not wanting to see her soar while he failed. His pride hadn't healed by the time her parents died, and while he'd been torn in two between knowing she was suffering and his own pride, he made the bad choice.

The doors opened, and people milled out in good spirits. She came out thanking Robbie, and when he caught Robbie's eye, he was relieved to see the other man gesture toward James. Sara turned, her eyes scanning James for a moment but he stood, staring back at her, feeling suddenly transported back to Cambridge. She'd just routed him in a debate in their philosophy course, although he'd officially won – biased professor and the easier argument – and instead of one or the other gloating, she suggested they read each other's essays for errors before submission. He'd no idea, then, that an academic arrangement would lead to long hours in her company, discussing philosophy and religion, celibacy and desire, until the first time she kissed him, he was so attracted and intrigued, it never occurred to him to pull away. From kisses to nights spent tangled in the sheets of whatever bed they settled in, James spent three years in freefall.

And those three years flashed before him as she slowly crossed the milling people who had exited the courthouse. She looked up at him and his throat tightened.

"Congratulations," he managed to choke out. "You got off, I see."

"Yes," she said, smiling tightly. "Lizzie gave me the listing you found. I've bought the shop. The one on the High Street. No attached flat, so I'll probably have to move in to the manor, but there are worse things, I suppose."

He nodded, and when she sat on the short wall, he sat beside her.

"What's the box?" she asked, glancing at the old shoebox. He ran his finger along the edge of the box and smiled.

"When we went to seminary," he said softly, "they told us to find a box – any size, any shape – and put in it all the things we thought would keep us from finishing, all the worldly things tying us to our sin, to our old selves. Or symbols, depending on the worldly things. Some people chose boxes that were also symbols of those things, but I just picked one the right size. When people finished, they were given the box, and usually they burned them, or gave things to charity, but the idea was they were meant to get rid of the things, which should no longer matter to them. If we left early – like I did…they just gave us back the box, our chains holding us to the world."

She frowned slightly as he slid the box onto her lap, but he nodded for her to open it, and she slowly lifted the lid, as though she expected the contents to jump at her.

Inside, on the top, was the inscription she wrote on a bookmark, the bookmark expressing her love that she'd stuck in the John Donne book she'd given him, on the page between "The Flea" and "The Good-Morrow," the sweet words saying how she loved him and wished only the best for him in everything in life. He knew the placement wasn't just random – she'd picked two poems to remind him forever of their sexual relationship, of the beautiful sensations of holding her, of being inside of her, of waking up with his arms around her, smelling the roses in her hair.

She smiled a little and said, "You kept it."

"Of course I did," he whispered as she moved it aside to see what else was in the box.

James closed his eyes, knowing what she would find. A few trinkets she'd given him. Ticket stubs from shows they'd seen, concerts they'd gone to, movies he'd taken her to, even receipts of gifts he'd given her and dinners they'd gone to. A few letters she'd written him while he was away doing missions work. And at the bottom….

She gasped, and he knew she'd found the drafts of proposals he'd written in a frenzy in the month before they graduated. He'd worked and he'd worked, trying to think of the right words, and then he'd given up. And then the next day, he'd start over again, still not sure he wasn't going to marry her until the day he left for the seminary. And beside the proposals….

He opened his eyes to see her looking at the little box with the ring, a perfect ring, simple and understated, but with an unusually cut diamond. She had jewels far more beautiful in her family collection, but she never wore jewelry, so James had known the moment he saw this ring, it was for her. Before he even had the thought to marry her, he'd seen it while he was trying to decide what to get her for a Christmas present, and he'd bought it, holding on to it, until he started writing proposals he never used.

"I was a coward," he said softly when she looked at him with beseeching, puzzled eyes. "I guess I still am." He rubbed his jaw. "I tried to put you in this box, the one thing holding me back from my supposed destiny. But I could never stop loving you, couldn't contain you in the box. I left the seminary, and for years it seemed my mistakes piled on me, and I was too proud to reach out, to find you, to give you that ring. To give you that box. It never occurred to me you weren't okay, that you weren't doing brilliantly with your degree and your Milton and your beauty and your charm. I assumed you'd married someone else, had children, moved on with your life and by reaching out to you, I'd just dig up a past only I was clinging to. So, I tried to move on, focused on my work."

He licked his lips and rubbed his eyes.

"I'm sorry I never called," he said. "It might not have made a difference, but…. It was too hard for me to accept that I didn't lose you, I gave you up."

She closed the box and he shook his head as she moved to slide it back onto his lap.

"No, no," he said. "No, you keep it. It was always yours, anyway."

"But these things matter to you," she said softly, and he saw her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

"Yeah," he said, smiling. "So do you."

"What does the ring mean, now?" she asked, tracing her finger in a patter along the lid of the box.

James rubbed his neck and glanced over to Robbie and Laura, who were walking away on the other side of the street, headed for the car park. He sighed.

"I suppose it means…I'm sorry, I was stupid, and I still love you. And if we could…I'd like to get to know you again. Catch up on the years I've missed."

Sara looked down at the box and he held his breath, not fully sure what he was offering, but praying she would agree. Slowly she nodded, told him she'd like that, and he sighed, relieved.

"You know," he said as they stood, walking toward the car park together, "you could rent a room. You don't have to go back to the manor." She hummed, obviously considering the idea. "In fact, I've got a room. I'll give you a good going rate."

"What, like a guest room?" she teased.

"Of course," he said, feeling his neck go hot. It was too soon to even suggest they share a room, as much as the thought of sleeping beside her again made his chest expand and his pulse race.

"I dunno if that's a good idea, James."

"You don't want to go back to the manor tonight, do you?"

She sighed, rubbing her neck frowning at him, and he gave her his most winning smile. He could see her melting as he raised his eyebrows, and when she began to purse her lips, he pressed his advantage.

"One night," he said, raising a finger. "If you hate it, you never have to come back, but give it a shot, Sara."

"I'll pay rent," she said firmly.

"Of course."

"And my share of food expenses."

"Naturally."

She nodded stiffly, and then her shoulders relaxed and she said, "So, where do we go, then?"

He took her hand on a whim, kissed it, and gave her his address. For the first time since he saw her in the flat above Tome, James felt hopeful. Nothing specific, just a general, uplifting hope.

 **A/N: So, James and Sara are back in each other's lives, the darkest part of her history is put to rest, and the future is an open slate.**

 **Review Prompt: Thoughts on the start?**

 **Q &A: Ask me anything! I answer in the author's note of chapters, and I keep a record of all questions and who's asked them so I can share your very good questions with other readers, and give you credit for our awesome questions!**

 **Cheers!**

 **C**


	2. The Future of the Club

James woke to the sound of the kettle boiling and the smell of a fry-up. He rolled over in his bed, expecting to see the shoebox there, but it was an empty spot on his shelf. He smiled, recalling for the first time for the day that he'd had Sara living in his home for several months. She paid rent – although he went out of his way to sneak money back into her purse whenever he had a chance – and she liked to cook, although her food was mostly inedible. The curse of growing up with a cook, he supposed, but at least she could make a decent cup of tea and could work a stove without burning anything.

Small miracles.

Although she'd been living in his house for several months, and although he would often spend the whole of her turn in the shower wishing he could touch her, they'd yet to kiss. She seemed perfectly content not to suggest such a thing, and James was too afraid she'd leave if he dared bring it up. But he was going spare, trying to think of a way to tell her how he felt.

He pulled himself out of bed, staggering sleepily into the kitchen, frowning as she piled garlic powder and onion into the fry-up. She put garlic on everything, which would have been alright…if she didn't put enough to give even the strongest of stomachs an ache. And if he was called in to work, he'd need to go through a whole packet of chewing gum just to mask her cooking on his breath.

Still, he thought, smiling absently as she poured the tea, there was something pleasant and cozy in her making breakfast for them. Almost like at school, when she'd all but moved him into her flat. He let his eyes graze down the curve of her neck as he thought how many nights they'd spent not sleeping in that flat, making love until they passed out from exhaustion. He thought he'd fail that term for lack of revision, but she always found a way to squeeze in schoolwork between the sex.

"Morning," he sighed, leaning against the doorframe.

"Morning," she sang back, and he smiled a bit more. "Sausages, bacon, or both?"

"Erm…" He nibbled on his lip. "Sausages."

She didn't season the sausages quite as…generously. It seemed safer.

Sara was just tipping his breakfast on a plate when he got a text from Nell – "Dad's a little better" – and tried to think of how to respond.

"Who's texting at this hour?" Sara asked, taking off her apron and gesturing for him to join her at the table.

"Nell," he said, sitting across from her, wanting to kiss her hair before he sat but restraining himself. He couldn't smell her for all the garlic and cooked food in the room, but he knew it smelled of roses. "She's been to see Dad."

"He's not living in Oxford?" Sara asked, puzzled.

James shifted, frowning. He hadn't mentioned to Sara that his father was in a care home, and he didn't know how to tell her. But it might good for both, if he brought her to see him. He wouldn't recall her, but his father had always adored Sara. It might be positive, to be around someone so caring and tactful.

"Erm, nearby," he said, speaking too quickly. "We might see him this weekend, if you're free."

"Oh, I'd love that," she said, smiling. "I've got the late shift Saturday and a day off Sunday, so it shouldn't be a problem. And shop's closed for the bank holiday weekend. Reckon you won't get any murders?"

He raised his eyebrows, but his phone rang before he could tell her why she shouldn't say things like that.

Lizzie.

/-/

The glow in James for the past few months was unmistakable to Robbie, but he had the sense nothing had progressed significantly between Sara Moore and James, despite her lodging with him. They'd forgiven each other, but for a couple who'd wasted so much time and were so clearly in love, Robbie didn't understand why they were still so stubbornly platonic.

"What is this place?" James asked, looking around at the car park they were called to, next to a field with stands and some smaller buildings.

"Facilities for Abingdon FC, sir," Lizzie said, looking at her notes.

"Which is?"

"Football, man," Robbie said, grinning. "Small team."

"Very," Lizzie said, raising her eyebrows. "Play in Division One of something called the…North Berks Football League. I've been informed it's the twelfth division."

"Aren't there only four fully professional divisions?" James asked, rubbing his forehead. "Or is it seven?"

"Suffice it to say, we're well below that," Robbie said, gesturing him over to the body of a young boy, perhaps fourteen, fifteen, run over by a car. "Probably just a hit-and-run. Where did you get your breakfast?" he asked as James sighed, seeming to exhale a cloud of garlic.

"Don't ask," James sighed with a slight groan, kneeling over the body. "What direction would the car have been going?"

"Difficult to say," Laura said, looking around. "Either they went this way, and he was already lying down, or they went that way and hit him first. Either way, they would have noticed the bump. He's a skinny lad, but I know when I've run down a rabbit or a cat. Be tough to miss running down a teenager."

Robbie hummed, frowning at the broken face of the fair-haired boy as Lizzie told them that the Manager identified him as a Stephen Beaconsfield. Had been playing there, was now the kit boy while he was on injury.

"Apparently, he was good, was supposed to be their salvation," Lizzie said, frowning. "But he'd become less and less interested in training, and the injury happened about two weeks ago. He'd seemed a lot happier. What a terrible accident."

"No," James said, frowning and gesturing to the pattern of the tire marks on the pavement. "No, these aren't brake marks before the victim. Someone ran him over, braked, and then reversed back over him, presumably to make sure he was dead, before driving off. Not just a hit and run, although it might have been opportunistic. But someone's murdered Stephen Beaconsfield."

Robbie sighed. A hit-and-run was bad enough. But for a kid who was supposed to be someone's salvation, he'd met quite a vicious end.

/-/

The manager of Abingdon FC had trembling hands as he accepted the tea from his secretary. James and Robbie both took their tea. James took a sip, but he knew before it even touched his lips that it wouldn't be as perfect as every cup Sara made. He took a deep breath before setting down the cup and saying, "Mr. Charles."

"Stan," the man said, sighing. "Everybody calls me Stan. I can't believe this could happen at our club. Oh, the papers are going to be vicious. But we can't afford lighting in the car park, and nobody's ever here after dark, anyway."

"At least two people were," Robbie said softly, and the man let out a strangled sob. "Did Stephen have any enemies at the club?"

"Enemies?" the man said, blinking, confused. "No, Stephen was going to save us. A real talent, he was. I mean, too good for us. But we had it all figured out. A couple of years, grooming him and working with his agent, and then we were going to sell him to Oxford City for enough money to get the whole pitch resurfaced. That would have saved us. If it's artificial, you see, we can let it out to smaller clubs and community events and the like, but it's too costly to maintain if it's grass, you see?"

James didn't see, but he nodded. Someone would explain it to him later. Essentially, they were going to sell on a young talent to make an investment that would give them more stable cash flow. And apparently, Stephen was essential for that plan.

"A lot of pressure to put on a young kid, salvation of your club," Robbie said, raising his eyebrows. "D'you reckon that's why he was getting so uninterested in training?"

"It had occurred, yes," Stan Charles said, frowning. "He was very close to his mother. She said she was going to have a word with him, just last week she said. He loved doing the kits, but he was trying to skip out on physio work. We're blessed to have a volunteer physio to work with the lads. And he said Stephen had been skipping sessions. It's like he didn't want to play anymore, but when I asked him, he got very tetchy, said football was his life."

They thanked Stan Charles and James said he'd talk to the mother if Robbie could have a word with the physio.

"Sure," Robbie said with a sigh. "Lizzie's taking the list of players and she's going to track them all down for statements and alibis. Time of death was four in the morning. What was a teenager out at four in the morning for?"

James said nothing. They both knew there were plenty of things to draw a teen out at that time of night, but none of them were good. But then, the boy was dead.

/-/

Sara was at the shop when she had a call from a woman she'd spoken to a week prior, a very nervous woman who'd come to the clinic and asked all sorts of questions about their services, but decided they couldn't help her without saying why not. Sara had given the woman her card, but she hadn't expected to hear from her again.

"Sara Moore speaking," she said, not wanting to concern the woman by letting on that she recognized the number of the caller from the sign-in sheet.

"Ms. Moore?" the woman said, almost breathless. "I'm so sorry to bother you. I'm…sure you're busy. It's just…my son isn't in his bed and I don't know where he is and I don't know…."

The woman made a choking sound and Sara sighed. Whatever was going on, Sara knew this woman needed support, so she glanced around to be sure the shop was empty before turning the sign to closed and locking it.

"It's no trouble, Mrs. Beaconsfield," she said firmly. "Deep breaths. I'm on my way. Just give me an address and I'll be right there and we'll figure out what to do together, alright?"

The woman gave her home address and Sara hailed a cab, giving the address to the driver and keeping the woman on the line, as was protocol with a person in crisis.

/-/

James was surprised to see a cab pulling in right before him when he arrived at the home of Stephen Beaconsfield, and he was even more surprised to see Sara get out of the cab. He saw her blink at him with surprise and she said something into her phone, hanging it up and paying the driver.

"I hadn't realized she'd called the police," Sara said, frowning. "I was going to call you as soon as I had her calm enough to speak. She seemed hysterical, I thought she'd called me first."

"You know Linda Beaconsfield?" he asked, gesturing for her to follow him up the paved stone path.

"Erm, not exactly," she said, ringing the bell. "She came to the clinic recently, and was very vague but clearly troubled. So, I gave her my card. Just got a call from her, completely panicked. Doesn't know where her son is."

"I know where he is," James said with a sigh, wishing he didn't have to do this in front of Sara, but at least Stephen's mother would have a supportive person present who was familiar to her. "Make tea first thing, Sara. She's going to need it."

The wince on Sara's features indicated that she knew exactly what he was not saying, and when Linda Beaconsfield opened the door, almost sobbing with hysterics, Sara's features smoothed out. She soothed Linda, who was a frail looking woman, clearly on the older side for having a son of Stephen's age. James glanced at Sara with that thought, but he quickly looked back to Linda Beaconsfield, who looked at him with some concern.

"Mrs. Beaconsfield," he said softly, "I'm Detective Inspector Hathaway, Oxfordshire Police."

"You called the police?" she asked Sara, disoriented.

"No, no," Sara said with a sad smile. "We just arrived at the same time. I was on the phone with you, remember?"

"Y-yes," the woman said, nodding. "Yes. Yes, I do. Come in."

James watched Sara enter first, and he wished he could go back to bed and start the day over. The last thing he wanted was her involved in a case of his, especially after how it all went the last time. He followed Mrs. Beaconsfield to the sitting room and stood, not wanting to sit until Sara joined them, because it made him uneasy to have her out of his sight during a murder investigation.

"It's about Stephen, isn't it?" Mrs. Beaconsfield asked, sitting in a quilted armchair that seemed to be patched a dozen times over its lifespan, perhaps more. "He's a good boy, Stephen. I don't know what he could be…. I don't know what…."

"I'm afraid your son was found this morning," James said gently when Sara brought the tea through. "At the football club's car park. He'd been…run over." She gasped, and Sara frowned, giving the woman her tea and giving James tea, her eyes full of questions. She'd always been spot on with asking the right questions. In fact….

"Sara, Lizzie's at the station," he said, passing her a notebook. "Do you think you could…"

"I still use shorthand," she said, almost apologetically. He nodded and shrugged. "Erm, was it an accident, then? Her son?"

"We aren't sure yet," he said softly, "so we're investigating it as suspicious until we know otherwise. Which means I must know where you and your husband were at about four this morning, either side of it for about an hour."

"In bed," she said softly. "Stephen should have been in bed, too. Why wasn't he in bed?"

Mrs. Beaconsfield began to sob, and Sara asked if she wanted a moment to compose herself, suggesting she splash her face with some cold water, and Sara rubbed her arms when the woman retreated to do as suggested.

"What did she come to you for?" he asked, touching her hand, leaning in. He felt his heartbeat spike when he touched her hand, but if it affected her, she didn't show it. "At the clinic."

"Asked about our services for child abuse, but it's all strictly domestic abuse, so she said she didn't think we could help," she said, shrugging. "So, I guess she and her husband weren't the problem. And then she asked if there was a clinic or something to help men who'd been sexually abused. She's right, it's an oversight. It's the kind of thing that gets ignored, but it's terribly common."

James frowned, glancing at the door and whispering.

"You think someone was sexually abusing Stephen?"

Sara hummed and a shiver ran down his spine. What kind of mess had they stepped into this time?

/-/

Robbie stepped into a pristine doctor's surgery, crossing to the desk with a mousy woman flipping through a diary and running her finger along, looking for something.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Mangrove," she said with sticky false sympathy. "I'm afraid we won't have anything until next month. What I can do for you is put you down for then, and then make a note so you're on a waiting list if I get a cancellation. Well, it does happen. Yes, certainly. I'll let him know." She pressed a little button on her headset and smiled up at Robbie, tilting her head. She had a gentle smile. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I need to see a Doctor Baxter," he said, taking out his credentials. And showing them. "DI Lewis."

"Oh, I see," she said, frowning. "Erm, may I ask him what about?"

"There's been a death at the football club," he said softly, glancing at a pug-faced man dozing by a lamp in the corner and a pig-tailed girl kicking her exhausted-looking mother by door. "We need to have a few words with him. Could be suspicious death, you understand. I'll try to keep it short."

"Oh, of course," she said, horrified. "Yes, I'll…I'll show you straight back. He should be finishing with Mr. Reece any time now. You shouldn't have to wait long."

She led Robbie back through to the office, where voices could be heard, and a soft groan. The secretary's face flushed, and Robbie was about to ask if she was alright when she took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Doctor Baxter? There's been an incident at Abingdon FC, and there's a policeman here to see you."

"A moment, Carlie," a brittle voice replied, and the two men's voices lowered, finishing whatever business they had.

When the door, Robbie was surprised to see that Mr. Reece was maybe sixteen, seventeen years old. His dark eyes seemed strangely hollow, looking through Robbie as they grazed over him, barely acknowledging the secretary before he passed, tossing a schoolbag over his shoulder. Robbie checked his watch.

"Shouldn't he be at school?"

"I imagine his parents arranged it," Carlie said, shrugging. She was still flushing. "He's a good boy. Frail, unfortunately. Needs regular shots. They're not usually during school hours, but Dr. Baxter's a terribly busy man."

"Yes, I saw," Robbie said, stepping forward. He thanked the secretary as she closed the door behind him and he looked about the room at various bits of silverware and memorabilia, mostly football related. Then he glanced at the man standing in the middle of the room, a man close to Robbie in age, portly and ruddy. He shook Robbie's hand. "Doctor. DI Lewis."

"What's this about, Inspector?" Baxter said in his brittle voice. His eyes were beady and deep-set on his face. "Something about the club?"

"Yes, a boy was found dead in the car park," Robbie said, sitting when the doctor gestured for them to sit. "Stephen Beaconsfield was hit by a car sometime this morning."

The man's eyes widened, his mouth moving wordlessly for a moment as though trying to make sense of the words.

"Stephen?" he said softly. "Stephen. Oh, Stan's going to be a mess. That boy was the future of the club. Hit by a car? What kind of scum would just…. Ugh. When was this?"

"Between three and five this morning," Robbie said. "Where were you during those hours?"

"I wake at four," Baxter said, rubbing his jaw. "I arrive at the practice by five thirty. I like to review my day's appointments and their files before the day starts. Carlie usually gets here at six and I'm divorced, so I'm afraid I don't have anyone to corroborate. But I never go to the club until after five p.m., for the physio work. They have late practices to accommodate my schedule, and those of a lot of other volunteers. What was Stephen doing there so early?"

"We aren't sure," Robbie said softly. "Can you think of any enemies or any reason Stephen would want to stop playing?"

"Oh, sometimes these youths get complacent," Baxter said sullenly. "Especially the talented ones. Things come easy, so when they have to put in the work, they don't know how, and they resent it. There was a bit of a bust-up last week. I didn't hear who all was involved, but some of the whispers had Stephen involved. You know how gossip is, though. I don't know what's true and what's not most of the time. You'll want to ask Stan, and he can tell you who'd know about it. Might have even been there."

Robbie thanked him, making a note of the lack of solid alibi, and wondering why the suggestion that a boy like Stephen would simply be complacent. It didn't match the sense he got from Stan Charles. But Robbie didn't want to take too much of Doctor Baxter's time while he was in the middle of his work day. Knowing when he'd be at the club would be more useful, if he needed to ask him something else.

/-/

On the drive home, Sara was quiet, and James seemed lost in thought. She didn't know why he was taking her home instead of to the shop, but she didn't ask. His neck was stiff, his shoulders tight. She wanted to tell him she really didn't know anything, as though this would help him, but she just wondered why she hadn't found a way to give Linda Beaconsfield more help, more answers, when she'd come asking the first time. As unrelated as it probably was, at least Linda would know someone tried.

They missed the turnoff, and Sara said so, but James didn't bother turning the next street up and making the difference.

"I got a text from Nell," he said. "We're doing it now."

"Doing what?" she asked, leaning back in the seat.

He nibbled on his lip lightly before he said, "What's the school in that neighborhood, do you think?"

"The boy was getting private tutoring," Sara said, rubbing her eyes. "That's one thing she told me the first time we talked. Something about his schedule."

"Ah, the football."

"Football," Sara said, sitting forward. "He was a footballer, then? Big club?"

"Small," he answered. "Abingdon FC."

"Oh, yes," she said, picking lightly at the armrest with her thumbnail. "Abingdon. That's a tiny club, alright. Blue and white, yes?"

"How did you know that?" he asked, laughing nervously.

"That's who Brian played for, remember? Before his injuries."

James groaned and said, "Don't tell me you kept Brian Ellingsworth on as groundskeeper."

"Why not?" she asked, trying not to grin as she remembered the way James would get so possessive of her around Brian. Once, after Brian asked her for a drink in front of James, she'd had the longest, most intense night of sex they'd had in the whole of their relationship. Jealousy worked wonders on James's levels of desire.

"Because he's half-crippled for one," James said, almost bitterly. "And he's way too old for you."

"He's my groundskeeper, darling, not my husband."

His shoulders stiffened even more, and she wished she hadn't mentioned Brian Ellingsworth.

Sara had thought of kissing James for weeks, now, but she didn't know how to even begin. When they were young, it was the simplest thing in the world to pique his interest with debates about celibacy versus biological desire, and then coax him in with gentle touches, teasing caresses, light kisses, deeper and deeper with each time he didn't push her away. And James never pushed her away.

But so many years later, they weren't children anymore. He wasn't innocent and shy, and she wasn't whole and bold, and she didn't know how to begin again. It was obvious to both that picking up where they left off was impossible, but where did one begin? Surely not at the beginning all over again. So, she simply did not begin, always asking herself when she'd know what to do, but never doing.

And he did nothing, either.

When the car did come to a stop, it was at an idyllic building, large and signed as a care home. Beautiful, she thought, but not in the least what she expected when they got into the car at the Beaconsfield home.

"What's this?" she asked, not getting out of the car as he took off his seatbelt.

"I want you to see someone," he said softly.

"Who?"

"I couldn't wait any longer."

She said nothing, knowing the fate of Stephen Beaconsfield had him thinking of how time was an uncertain thing for everyone. A week's difference between Linda Beaconsfield desperately looking for help for her son and his being run over in a parking lot. A week between trying to fix everything and having the whole of a young man's life unravel, helpless but to see the results.

Sara got out of the car and followed James into the care home, feeling her own shoulders stiffen as they walked. A kindly young woman with almond-shaped brown eyes greeted him from behind a desk and said, "He's in the drawing room."

To be recognized in a place like this, to have them know what you wanted without asking…. Sara felt suddenly relieved to have lost her parents in a freak accident. She felt suffocated, wondering how James felt as she followed him through to the drawing room.

The shadow of Philip Hathaway sat in an overstuffed wingback chair, staring out French doors to a lawn behind the care home, frowning at something, or maybe nothing. Her breath caught as she realized how bad it must be, for James to be so familiar here, for Nell to contact him so regularly. Sara tried to swallow, but her throat was tight. She looked up at James, who stared at her instead of looking at his father, and she tried to think what to say. She wanted to ask him how long, wanted to ask what was wrong and how bad, wanted to ask how he felt, wanted to tell him how terribly sorry she was.

"Go talk to him," he said softly. "It's good for him to talk."

Sara didn't know what to say, to father or son, but she could see this was important to James, so she crossed the room, passing a knitting woman in the corner and two vacant residents on a sofa before she reached Philip, sitting on an ottoman beside his chair.

"Hello," she said softly, recalling this strong, intelligent, kind man. Once so full of life and love, and now he seemed like a shell. He'd take her fishing with James, and she would fish while James would watch. Philip would tell her stories, and tell her how happy he was to have her along. Like she was a bridge between the two men, who didn't know how to understand each other without her translating in between. "You looked lonely."

His light eyes widened as he traced her face, and she wondered if some corner of his mind recognized her, or wanted to recognize her. She wanted him to talk about all those days spent fishing, the dinners and the time he told her he wished James would propose so they could give him grandchildren. She wanted to tell him she was sorry for not checking in on him after James left, that she should have been there.

But there was no recognition in those eyes.

"You're lovely," he said, blinking at her. "Are you visiting someone?"

Sara smiled slightly, glancing around the room, her eyes falling on James, who was watching them with outer calm and a quiet desperation just underneath. She turned back to Philip and said, "Would you believe me if I said I came for you?"

"I'd be flattered," he said, and he took her hand, kissing it. "Are you a nurse?"

"No," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with her free hand, letting him hold on to her hand, although her hand was only held loosely. "No, I own a bookshop actually."

"My little boy loves books," he said, his eyes wide. She wondered how young he thought James was, in his weak memories. "Doesn't care for fishing."

"Ah, I love both," she said, winking at him. "Maybe someday, your son will, too."

She talked to Philip for a while about his wife, his children, some of the fish he'd caught, and he told her several times how beautiful she was, but when he started to get sleepy, she flagged a passing nurse to help him back to his room. When he was gone, she looked up at James, and he gestured for her to follow him out back.

/-/

Sara kept rubbing her arms as they walked the grounds of the care home, and James knew she was disturbed by how different his father was. Still, it was obvious how pleased his father was to talk with her, even if he didn't remember her at all. He never lit up like that for James.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she said softly.

"It never came up."

That wasn't the whole truth, but he didn't want to analyze his motives, either in his head or out loud with her. But she needed to know, and he thought it might be helpful, somehow. Helpful for them or helpful for his father, maybe helpful for all of them.

"It's so strange to see him like that," she whispered, and she stopped abruptly, crossing her arms and frowning at a birdbath. James stopped beside her, watching her face, wondering what she wasn't saying. "I mean, he doesn't seem like him, and yet he does."

"Well, he was right about one thing," James said, feeling a sudden surge of boldness as Sara hummed, questioning. "You are beautiful."

She laughed nervously, but he wasn't going to let her laugh it off. Watching Linda Beaconsfield's distress at losing her son was jarring for him, and while that morning he was prepared to wait until he knew what to do, he didn't feel there was time anymore. He'd already almost lost her once, and the number of freak accidents he knew of was staggering.

James took her hand, the way his father had, and he kissed it gently, feeling the warmth of her skin against his lips. Her eyes met his and he had a flash of days spent curled up skin on skin, hours of lounging by the water as they revised and dreamed. Her father told him he was a fool to leave her for the church. Now her father was gone, in the blink of an eye.

He let go of her hand, and instead of it falling to her side again, she rested it on his shoulder, just next to his collarbone. She was looking at his chest, but he couldn't take his eyes from her face, not daring to check that her hand was really on him. He felt he should say something, but he was afraid of saying the wrong thing and ruining everything. He leaned a bit closer and she didn't back away.

Before he could take a plunge and kiss her, though, his phone sounded, and he sighed, checking the text. From Robbie: Lizzie was done talking to the players, and he wanted to touch base at the office. James could have screamed, but he realized her hand was still on his shoulder, and she was still standing so close to him.

"Work?" she asked, her voice soft. He said yes, and started to say he would drive her back or call a cab, whichever she'd like, but before he could finish, she'd rolled forward on the balls of her feet and was pressing her lips to his.

Quick, spontaneous, a bit too brief for his liking, but it was a kiss. James leaned in as she backed away, wanting more, but knowing she was being reasonable. He had work to do, and she needed to get back to her own life, her own work.

"Can you drop me at the shop on your way?" she asked. "It is on your way, right?"

It was slightly out of the way, but James didn't care. He said it was on the way, not wanting to leave without her. Not when he could still feel the ghosts of her lips. He'd drive her all over town before reporting in, if she asked.

/-/

Robbie didn't ask why James took so long when he walked in. There was a certain stiffness about James's shoulders when he had just visited his father. He asked where they were, and Lizzie gave brief outline of the information from the players.

"In theory, none of them were anywhere near the club," Robbie said, frowning. "But our GP tells me there was a fight between our victim and at least one other player."

"Nobody mentioned that," Lizzie said, frowning, flipping through her notes.

"Let's ask our Stanley Charles about it," James said, pulling on his jacket. "Lizzie, with me. Robbie, I've got the name of Stephen's tutor, assigned to him by the club. Talk to him, especially about their personal relationship."

"Think they had a falling out?" Robbie asked, taking the contact information from James as Lizzie pulled her jacket off her chair.

James's eyes flashed and he said, "His mother was quite certain he'd been sexually abused, but she couldn't get him to talk about who. She was looking at resources, had been for about a week. If he was about to start talking, whoever it was might have silenced him."

Robbie sighed and nodded, making a note to ask Laura for signs of sexual violence in her postmortem.

/-/

James checked his watch and followed Lizzie into the office of Stanley Charles, who was pacing, and seemed not to have stopped since they left him that morning.

"Oh, yes," he said, blinking up at them. "Was there…is there something else? Do you know more? Or is there…?"

"We had a question about a supposed bust-up involving our victim last week," Lizzie said, taking down notes. "Apparently here, at the training ground?"

"Erm, that was nothing, nothing," Stan Charles said, waving it off. "Young boys get physical so easily, don't they?"

"Let us judge that, Mr. Charles," James said, glancing at the pictures lining the plate rail around the office. They seemed to go back decades, all with Stan Charles in them, but all with the blue and white of Abingdon FC.

"I don't know what it was about," Charles said, rubbing his eyebrows. "I never ask, you see. I give the boys a stern talking to and then I make sure it doesn't continue, you see. Both good lads. I never had trouble with either of them, usually. I just think they were under a lot of pressure. Good people do daft things under pressure, don't they? Especially young boys."

"The name of the other boy?" Lizzie asked.

"Ollie," Stan said. "Ollie Reece. You should have got his information already." Lizzie nodded, making a note on a page she already had in her flip notebook. Presumably her notes from her conversation with Ollie Reece.

"Is this you, Mr. Charles?" James asked, pointing to a group of very young boys, in that same blue and white, posing for a team photograph.

"Stan, please," he said, grinning. "Ah, yes, yes. I've been here at Abingdon FC my whole career, you see. A rarity in this line of work, but it does happen sometimes, even at the top levels. I was scouted here as a boy, much like poor Stephen. Played the left flank, all up and down at various stages of my career. Was player-manager when I got too old to be captain and play every match. And when I stopped playing, I've stayed on as a manager ever since."

"Lucky to get you, then, weren't they?" Lizzie said, grinning.

"Oh, I wasn't the best in my recruiting class," he said with a grin. "There was another boy, my counterpart on the right wing. Scored every time he was on the pitch, almost every time his boot touched the ball, it seemed."

"Sold him on?"

"No, injury cut off his career."

He didn't have to say the name. The boys were young, but James recognized the youth beside Stan Charles in the photograph – Brian Ellingsworth.

/-/

When Sara returned from the shop, James was already laying the table carry-out curry for dinner, and she took off her coat and scarf, hanging them and putting her keys in the catchall before she went through to the kitchen.

"How's the shop?" he asked in the voice that told her he was going to ask her something she wouldn't want to answer.

"Fine, what do you need?"

His lips twitched at being caught out, but he poured two large glasses of water and said, "I need Brian Ellingsworth's contact information."

"Why?"

"A hunch I have," he said, waiting for her to sit before he sat, as usual. "He played with our manager, back in their youth, and I want an opinion from someone who knows the club but isn't entrenched in it right now."

"You know where he lives," she said, lifting her hands to caress his neck, watching his eyes glow slightly at her touch. "Why ask me?"

His head jerked forward lightly, but he didn't lean in to kiss her.

"I don't want to show up unannounced after all these years," he said, his tongue touching his lips gently as he seemed to struggle with whether to kiss her. Sara said he was welcome to get Brian's number from her address book, in her desk, and he almost answered when she pulled him into a kiss.

The response was automatic, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her closer as he kissed her back. Until today, all her memories of kissing him had faded into pleasant, half-forgotten dreams. It had been so long since she'd kissed anybody that the subtleties of the pleasure were lost in the years. Her thumbs caressed his neck, coaxing him closer, closer, and before she could think of whether she should pull him closer or end the kiss, her stomach growled ferociously, making up her mind for her.

His lips turned up against hers and she laughed. She playfully bit at his lip, as if to play at eating him up. Instead of his pulling away, he opened his mouth slightly, deepening the kiss. She wondered if that was a turn-on for him, her teeth on his lips.

She was slightly breathless when she ended the kiss, staring up at him and his glowing, eager eyes.

"Food, I guess," she said, laughing nervously.

"Yeah."

He hardly spoke all through dinner, but he kept watching her with that thoughtful, pleased expression, and every time she glanced up she felt her chest expand with a kind of pride and desire that both excited and terrified her.

She tried to focus on her chicken tikka and not think about it, but James made it so difficult to ignore how she felt. Even when she was afraid to process things, she couldn't ignore them altogether.

She didn't kiss him goodnight, but she lay awake wondering why she hadn't, all the while knowing it was her fear of what he might ask if she had that kept her from that one simple gesture.

Because even now, none of this was simple.

/-/

The wind whipped at James's face as he traversed the long, familiar drive of the gamekeeper's cottage, a familiar and attractive house on the edge of the grounds of Belleperenne Manor. He could almost picture Brian Ellingsworth coming through the sky-blue front door with his shotgun rested on his shoulder, strutting across to his ATV or his truck to do his work.

James had always tried to stay away from this cottage, hating the way that man would look at Sara, far too old for her and yet always dogging her steps, even cheekily asking her out for drinks from time to time.

Brian Ellingsworth must have heard James pull up, because he did step slightly out of his cottage. No shotgun in sight, and the years seemed to have caught up to Brian all at once. He'd put on a good twenty pounds, lost about a third of his hair, and was more salt than pepper. His eyes narrowed as James approached, and years of distrust and animosity between the two men was resealed with a terse handshake.

"What's this about then, Hathaway?" he said in a stiff voice. "You said it had to do with the club?"

"A boy's been found dead at Abingdon FC," James said, showing his warrant card briefly and standing on the porch. "Apparently, the salvation of the club, and we're treating it as suspicious. And his manager is an old buddy of yours."

Brian rolled his eyes and invited James in. He didn't offer tea, just led him into the kitchen and poured himself a small brandy before he said, "If Big Stan's telling people we're old friends, I'm going to have to file slander charges."

"Not a fan?"

"Oh, I love Abingdon FC as much as anybody," Brian said, before tossing back his brandy. "Blue and white forever. But nobody worth anything spent much time around Big Stan. He's a decent manager, they say. But he was one of those…. Well, he spent a lot of time with muscle injuries, you know. Lots of hours with the physio."

James tilted his head, not sure what Brian was getting at. Footballers got injured – it was part of the game. He'd never been much of a fan, but he saw a bit while he was with Sara at university. Muscle injuries were common, he thought, from his limited understanding. And if his career was really so long, surely Stan Charles would have had his fair share.

"I don't follow."

"I assume the physio is still Braxton," Brian said, pouring himself some more brandy. James nodded. "Look, I can't say I know anything for certain, but there were always rumors about the way he ran the late evening injury sessions. The smaller ones had closed doors, if you know what I mean. And when there was a large injury bill, sometimes the regulars would see him at his surgery instead, middle of the day, sometimes even during training. Depended how busy we were. Rumor was, a handful of blokes were…you know. Big Stan was supposed to be one of them."

The implications hit James like a heavy wind. If Doctor Braxton was sexually abusing the players, if he'd been doing it for all these years, surely he would have been found out. But even if he hadn't, James could see why Stephen Beaconsfield's behavior would change, why his mother would be so distressed. So, did another boy get jealous? Did Stephen threaten to tell someone about Braxton's behavior? Was his mother's involvement scaring someone, thinking he'd tell her if left to his own devices?

James was about to thank him and leave when Brian said, "You know, Hathaway, I remember how you used to follow Lady Adabelle around, like a sodding puppy, eagerly traipsing after her everywhere she went. You were such a jealous little thing. But you know, I'm still here."

Ellingsworth grinned like a victor, and James knew he should keep his mouth shut, stay professional, walk away. He knew he should, really, but he couldn't help it. A familiar wave of possessive anger welled up in him and he narrowed his eyes.

"Yes, you are," he said softly, and Brian's eyebrows twitched triumphantly. "You're still here, slaving over Her Ladyship's lands, serving at Her Ladyship's manor. But that's all you have, Ellingsworth. After all these years, she's sleeping at my house, and you never even convinced her to go for drinks."

James knew he shouldn't have implied his relationship was further with Sara than it was, but he couldn't help it. The way Brian's mouth flopped, bewildered, was too perfect. And if Brian went around, checking up, he'd only be able to learn that Sara was indeed sleeping at James's house. Someday he might even chance upon them kissing.

And so, James left without a polite word to take his leave or thank the man for his time, and all the way to the car, James felt he was the conquering hero, now.

/-/

The sunlight in Priya Vemulakonda's kitchen made a small room light, airy, pleasant. The adjoining conservatory didn't hurt, either. Robbie thanked her for the tea, ready to tease James for only getting a surname and assuming a male tutor. She checked her watch, licking her lips as she did a quick mental calculation.

"I tutor several players for the club," she said, laying out a few of her printed reports for Robbie to see and compare. "They're small enough, they don't tend to have more than a handful of school-aged kids at a time. A few clients are students about to fail out of or desperate to get into a posh school, and the rest are from the local comprehensive for all their various reasons. Stephen was a bright boy, but he didn't care about school, and I respected that. As long as he did all I asked of him, I never tried to push him beyond the basics, and I focused on things he'd need in his life, when the football ran out. I'm a practical woman, Inspector."

He'd already come to that conclusion on his own. The house was devoid of clutter. The kitchen had very few items and trappings milling about. Not even a microwave or electric kettle. No sign of anything not necessary.

"They work with myself and my husband," she said, almost sternly. "But he won't be back from Budapest for three weeks. He's been gone for two already."

"Thank you," Robbie said, jotting this down, to check. "Had you seen a change in Stephen, recently?"

"Oh, they always change when they're injured," she said, nodding as he looked over the reports. Glowing wouldn't be the right word, but she had no serious complaints about any of the boys. One boy, Ollie, had been skiving off lately, but only a handful of times and Priya's report said they'd worked out makeup sessions that wouldn't impact his physio meetings or training. "If anything, I'd say Stephen's mood improved. I did say to Stan, the pressures he's putting on that boy, he's bound to look for some kind of out if it gets too much. But Stan's a notoriously bad listener."

"Is he?" Robbie asked, and he listened carefully as she told him about her history working with Stanley Charles, his patterns, his insecurities, and how every time they had a highly talented boy like Stephen, he'd hail him the savior of the club, and they always crumbled.

It had happened four times while she worked with him, none so promising as Stephen.

/-/

Sara was sitting at the kitchen island when James came home. She wanted to say something clever, sweet, maybe even funny, but she'd never been good at finding the right words on the fly, so she simply stood and waited for him, as he hurried into the house. He seemed in a rush, but she stopped him, wrapping her arms around his neck, asking what was wrong.

"The case," he said, rubbing his jaw before letting his arms wrap around her waist. "I need to know something from the past, but I think I burned any bridges I had with Brian Ellingsworth." She tried not to laugh and decided not to tell him about the half-panicked call she'd got, asking if she really was living with James. Men could be so silly about their little power trips.

"What did you need to find?" she asked, letting her fingers caress his neck, watching his eyes flicker and feeling the change in his breathing. He leaned closer, obviously trying to choose between work and play.

"Records," he said. "Something to give me an idea of Brian's relative strength compared with Stanley Charles."

She hummed.

"How about," she said, softly, leaning close to his lips, "in the morning, I show Lizzie just where to look?"

"Not Lizzie," he said firmly. "Me. She's chasing down one of the players, Ollie Reece. And Robbie's interviewing some former players."

"All the better, then," she said, breathing the words against his lips as he crumbled and kissed her, pulling her closer, his hands as strong and steady as she remembered. Sara wished she had the courage to push through and give him everything he deserved, but for the moment, this seemed to be enough. She enjoyed the kiss, running through her plans for dinner and a quiet night in as she watched it all unfolding perfectly before her.

"It's not very good," she said softly against his mouth as he tried to coax her into more kisses. "But I've made dinner."

"I'm sure it's edible," he teased, kissing the corner of her mouth before letting go to respectfully inspect her work, and she felt her chest expand at the grin he couldn't contain.

/-/

James woke beside Sara on the sofa, and for one moment he wondered if they'd crossed any lines the night before. But he was still clothed and from what he could see and feel under the throw he'd pulled over them in the night, she was clothed as well. Taking advantage of the situation, he curled more against her, tightening his arm about her waist, breathing in the gentle scent of roses in her hair as he nuzzled his face against her neck. The feel of her body spooned with his was something familiar and wonderful, like a half-forgotten dream.

She stirred slightly and he held his breath, but she only adjusted back into him, one of her hands resting over his where he held her at the waist. He exhaled, his breath tickling her neck as her shoulders relaxed again. He knew he'd have to wake her soon, but he wanted to stay like this all day. Perhaps when the case was over he'd coax her into another night on the couch, another night curled up together, letting him hold her.

But, for now….

He whispered her name against her neck, and she hummed, stirring slightly again, but not really waking. James said her name again, a bit louder this time, before pressing a few kisses against her neck, wrapping his arms about her more tightly. She stirred again, stretching her arms and legs slightly, murmuring something unintelligible in response.

"'Sit morning?" she asked blearily.

"Yeah," he said, kissing her neck again, then the top of her jaw, letting his lips graze the bottom of her earlobe as she turned over. She smiled at him, sleepy and not fully sure of how they got here. He could read it on her face. But smiling. "Breakfast?"

"Please."

He kissed her lips, gently, briefly, which was far too much of a temptation on its own. He carefully extricated himself, scrambling back to the kitchen, with a brief glance back as she sat up and slowly stretched, arching her back like a sleepy feline. He smiled to himself, unable to stop. He'd sneak some more of her rent payment back into her wallet later, when she was preoccupied with something else.

Breakfast was quick, and Sara was grateful, although she made the tea, as usual. He'd become spoiled with her perfectly made cups of tea, and he'd quite forgotten a time when he made them for himself and thought that sufficient.

They went to a records building for a local newspaper establishment, and were greeted by someone who knew Sara – as everyone seemed to know Sara. She kissed the woman's cheek and said they were looking for old Abingdon FC records, something about Brian Ellingsworth and Stan Charles, a way to compare them. The woman said she'd see what she could dig up, and offered coffee or tea.

"No, thank you," James said, and he was surprised when Sara sat across from him at the table, her hands taking his underneath the wooden table. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"I was thinking," she said, almost nervous. "If it's alright with you and Nell, obviously, I'd like to visit your father again. Maybe regularly. I could go with one of you, if that's best, or by myself if you wouldn't mind."

"Sara," he said, almost laughing, "I'll have a word with Nell, but as far as I'm concerned, you can visit him as often as you wish. I'm sure it will do him good to see you."

Her lips twitched and she said, "I think it's probably done me a bit of good, too."

/-/

Sara felt James lean over her shoulder as a selection of newspaper clippings and she breathed in his clean, fresh scent. She nibbled her lip, spreading a few clippings and looking for any statistical information that could organize the two people they were comparing. She held her breath as James moved closer, his arm going around behind her as he braced himself. She could feel the warmth radiating off him as he looked at the clippings as if he couldn't feel the energy between them. How could he think like this?

"Stanley gets cursory mentions in most of these," he said, his fingers brushing hers as he moved a few of the clippings around. "Ellingsworth is all over them."

"I told you he was good," she said, wishing she didn't sound so breathless. Was she actually breathless, or did she imagine it?

James hummed, shifting slightly, coming even closer as he reached for a far clipping.

"What's this?"

"Ah, these are after Brian's injury and retirement," Sara said, moving the stack closer. "Stan features pretty prominently in these. Still not a star, but I guess not competing for the space with Brian helps visibility."

"All these transfer rumors for other people," James said softly. "All these contracts…for other people. He just keeps getting slightly better deals each time, doesn't he? He's given his life to a club that always valued someone else more."

"That's enough to make me bitter," she said, and he flipped through injury reports, as though looking for something. He actually rested his chin on her shoulder, and she realized he was doing this on purpose. She rolled her eyes, but it didn't change that her heart was racing. "James, what are you doing?"

"You smell nice," he said, turning his face toward her hair.

She licked her lips, not wanting to allow a nervous laugh.

"We're in public."

"Not really," he whispered, before pressing his lips lazily to her neck. "And I really wouldn't care if we were."

Sara closed her eyes, feeling his breath and lips on her skin. It was as if those first nervous kisses had opened a floodgate, and now they were suddenly randy teenagers again, incapable of being physically separated. She was flattered and nervous, excited and terrified.

"James, you're working."

He sighed, kissing her jaw before sitting up again, but not bothering to move his body away from hers as they went over the rest of the newspaper clippings.

"Wait a minute," he said, pulling the clipping announcing Brian's injury toward him. "Training ground injury? So, it didn't happen in a match."

"No," she said, rubbing her eyes and stretching. "If I remember, he said some idiot clattered into him in a careless challenge, which doesn't happen often in training. But they were young."

James closed his eyes, seeming to be deep in thought as he considered this information. She liked to see him thinking like this, the way he would on sunny afternoons in Cambridge, trying to remember the philosophical stages of development for the Coptic Church.

"And he was already recovering from muscle injuries," James whispered, as though this meant something to him. "If Stan were jealous…."

"Jealous?" Sara asked, but James shook his head before he kissed her lips, tantalizing but brief.

"I've got to go," he said urgently. "I need to see what Robbie's got out of Ollie Reece."

"Dinner?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"What about it?" he asked, taking a few pictures of some of the clips on his phone as he stood up.

She licked her lips before she said, "D'you want to…go out for dinner tonight, maybe?"

He paused, looking at her with mild astonishment before he began to smile.

"Yeah," he said, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I'll keep you posted on my schedule."

He kissed her again before he left, and Sara closed her eyes in his absence, still able to feel the ghost of his body beside her, his arm around her, his lips teasing her neck.

/-/

Lizzie and Robbie looked in at Ollie Reece, who was sitting in the interrogation room by himself after a long chat with both Lizzie and Robbie – the same bloke Robbie had seen in Baxter's surgery, and apparently the bloke the victim had a bust-up with, before the incident. Ollie had shut down before he even sat in the chair they'd provided for him, and although he didn't mention a solicitor, he didn't answer a single question put to him. It suggested guilt in many ways, but it also could point to a scared kid, a savvy kid, or someone with a secret to hide.

"Inspector Hathaway's on his way," Lizzie said, checking her phone. "I suppose we can see what he makes of him."

Robbie nodded, taking a few of his notes out of the observation room to post them on the incident board.

/-/

James had the very short transcript of the conversation they'd tried to have with Ollie Reece as he frowned at the skinny, dark-featured boy picking absently at a dry spot on his elbow, alone in the interrogation room.

"I'm going in," he said, passing the notes to Lizzie. She blinked at him, puzzled, as he left observation and went across to interrogation, ignoring her questions of whether he wanted some preparation with him. But James didn't need all that, because he had an inkling he knew what was going on, or at least part of it.

Ollie didn't flinch at the sudden opening of the door, and he just stared up at James languidly, his eyes saying as his words never could that he would not speak, under any conditions.

"I know you're not going to talk," James said. "I'm not even starting the tapes, because I know you're not going to speak, and I don't need you to. But I do have one thing to say." Ollie stared back at him, unmoved. "I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry that your dream was turned into a way to abuse you."

Ollie still said nothing, but his face twitched and he stared back up at James. He swallowed visibly, his neck stiffening. All the answer James needed before storming out again, rubbing his jaw.

He knew who needed to talk to Ollie, who could get anything out of Ollie, but would CS Moody approve it?

/-/

It took some convincing, but James somehow managed to get approval for Lady Matsbury to come and talk with Ollie Reece. As James pointed out – to get his way – they weren't holding Ollie, didn't actually suspect him of killing Stephen Beaconsfield, but they did need him to talk about his experiences, and Sara Moore was an expert in talking with victims of sexual violence and abuse through years of practice at the clinic.

She arrived very quickly, had a quick and quiet word with James in the corridor, and asked a passing constable for a glass of water in a disposable cup. The young man looked puzzled, but obliged at James's nod. She took her water, tucked a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear, and Robbie saw her slip into the interrogation room. The detectives went to the observation room to see what she was up to, and James stood perhaps too close to the window, eyes wide as he watched her.

"Oh, sorry," she said, smiling nervously at the sight of Ollie, who blinked up at her, his eyes scanning her casual wardrobe and determining she wasn't a police officer. "I must have confused the directions to the loo." He just blinked at her as she smiled, and she cocked her head, narrowing her eyes.

"Wait a mo'," she said, frowning. "Have we met before?"

Ollie narrowed his eyes and shook his head, but Sara Moore was unrelenting, turning her head slightly.

"No, I'm certain I've seen you before," she said, pulling a chair to the side of the table instead of taking the interrogator's seat, which Robbie thought was a nice touch. "Let's see. Do you read much?" Ollie shook his head. "Garden show?" He snorted. She grinned, shaking her head. "You're not Methodist, are you?"

Ollie's eyebrows darted up and he finally said the first word since saying his name for the record: "No."

She pursed her lips, smiling at him and shaking her head, seeming to be searching for something. Ollie shifted slightly, his shoulders loosening as he shrugged and said, "I play football."

Sara snapped her fingers and grinned, and said, "That's it! Abingdon FC, right?" He nodded, grinning. "I don't watch as often as I should. Erm…Reece, right?"

"Ollie," he said, nodding.

"My name's Sara," she said brightly. "I hope everything's okay, most of the time people aren't here for good reasons."

"What are you here for?" he asked, his shoulders tightening again.

"Oh, just here visiting my boyfriend," she said grinning, and Robbie glanced at James, who was suddenly wearing an uncontainable smile. "But I'm guessing you're not visiting somebody."

He shook his head.

"They think I know something," he said softly.

"About what?"

"About…about my teammate. He's dead. But I don't know anything. I was asleep."

She frowned and said, "So, why do they think you know something?"

He shrugged again and picked at a spot on the table before he said, "We had a fight. But it was nothing."

"Nothing?" she said, puzzled. "Fight and nothing don't usually go together."

"He was being stupid," Ollie said, scratching his jaw, not looking at Sara. "I was trying to set him straight. He's got weird lately, since his physical. And he was going to do something stupid. But he couldn't. But I didn't want him dead. He's the future of the club. Everybody says so. And that club is all I've got."

"Everything?" she asked, frowning. "What about school?"

"Tutoring," he said with a shrug. "And my mum hasn't got time to take me places or anything. All my friends are at Abingdon. The tutor is from Abingdon. Everything."

"Girlfriend?" she asked, and he shook his head. "Boyfriend?"

He flinched, his shoulders going tight, but he shook his head again.

"Sorry," she said, leaning forward slightly, frowning. "I didn't mean to upset you. Breakups are hard."

"No breakup," he said, picking at the table. "I just…. I've never dated."

"I see," she said, softly, frowning at him. "I…. This is probably prying, but it looks like they've left you here for a while, and no one's expecting me back right away. Mind if I tell you a story?"

Robbie held his breath as Sara gave a short, pared down version of her story of her sexual assault to this teenage boy, who stared staring at his hands and ended up watching her speak with wide eyes, leaning forward, riveted. This was, Robbie thought, the best idea James had ever had.

/-/

Sara listened patiently, horrified, as Ollie Reece opened up to her, telling her about how he joined the club at eight years old, how he was marked out early by the volunteer physio/doctor and groomed for sexual favors. He told her he knew there were others, throughout the years. There had to have been, he said, for as long as Baxter had been with the club. He'd never dared even hint to Big Stan, he said, although he figured Big Stan already knew. The club was his life, he explained, and he couldn't afford to lose a career, a future, because he crossed the wrong person.

"I figured he must have closed in on Stephen," he said darkly. "I recognized the signs, and he's still got a youthful body, you know. I've started to fill out, gain muscle mass. Stephen wanted to tell Big Stan, and I think he thought his importance to the club would force change. But he changed his mind, or something, and he forced an injury instead. But I think it probably made things worse. He still had to see the physio, do the kits. Anyway, he was going to tell his mum, he told me so. And we fought about it. Pretended it was a normal training-room bust-up."

"He said the physio was hurting him, too?" Sara asked, wanting to clarify.

"He didn't say specifically," Ollie said, frowning. "I never asked. It's the sort of thing you talk about from an angle, you know? Never straight on." Sara nodded, understanding completely. "Anyway, now he's dead, you know? And I'm worried about me, and I'm worried about my future, and what happens if I tell them what I do know and the club is somehow gone, and I'm left with nothing?"

Sara took a deep breath, feeling the corners of her eyes prickle. She was going to open another clinic, she decided it in that moment. What they did for women and domestic abuse victims was wonderful, but there needed to be a place for boys like Stephen and Ollie to turn, and if her instinct was right, there would be a staggeringly large call for such a place. But for now, she had to do this one thing for James, for Stephen's mother, for Ollie.

"I can't promise to solve all your problems," she said softly, "although I wish I could, Ollie. I really do. This kind of thing is suffocating, isn't it? And I hope you don't have to leave football the way I had to leave university. But how will you feel if you knew you had this chance to be heard and put things right, if the things you know helped find Stephen's killer and stop this happening to other kids?"

"Pretty good," he said, shrugging. "At least, a bit good."

"And how would you feel if you didn't take this chance? How would you feel if nothing came out and the killer doesn't get caught, and your career comes to an end anyway? It could be now, it could be twenty years from now, but it's going to happen, you know? How will you feel?"

He swallowed and she could see unshed tears in his eyes as he squeezed his upper arms with shaking hands. She knew they didn't need him to go on record if they could find the killer another way, but it would be good for him, for his healing, to make this first step. She'd leave her card for him later, maybe with Lizzie. Because the first step was nothing if he didn't know how to move forward from there.

"What do I say?" he choked out.

"Well, what you've just told me is a good start," she said, feeling her phone buzz. "One thing I do know," she said, taking a small peek at her phone and seeing a text alert from her housekeeper at the manor. "One thing I know about this station is they're good listeners, and they care about victims. You can't say that about all the police, can you?" he shook his head. "But this is a safe place to start, Ollie."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"D'you have to go?" he asked, glancing down at her phone.

"Not if you feel you need me here," she said firmly. The manor could wait, whatever it was. "I'll stay as long as you like."

He sucked in a slow breath, nodding as he looked around the room, his eyes falling on the recording equipment before he exhaled and said, "Actually, you know what, could you send someone in to talk to me? I think…I think I should…." He licked his lips. "You've got things to do, and I reckon they need to get on with looking for whoever killed Stephen, right?"

"I expect so," she said, smiling. "I'll send someone in, Ollie. And just remember, it's going to hurt, but it will be okay. I promise."

He nodded, but he looked nauseous as she left the room. She closed the door behind her and pulled out her wallet and her phone, opening the text alert to see what was going on at the manor.

James and Lizzie came out into the corridor and she handed a copy of her card to Lizzie, telling her it was for Ollie.

When she read the text, she nearly dropped her phone.

/-/

James knew something was wrong when Sara paled at the sight of whatever was on her phone and took a small, staggering step. He swallowed his half-joke he'd been formulating about her calling him her boyfriend, and he asked what was wrong.

"There's a prowler at the manor," she said, looking up at him as he grabbed her arm. "Security spotted a figure on the east side of the grounds, searching."

"By Brian's cottage," James said, feeling his pulse jump.

"And they can't get ahold of Brian," she said, gripping his arm. "James, he's not as mobile as a healthy man. If they can't find the prowler in time…."

"Lizzie, talk to Reece," James said, knocking on the door for Robbie to join him. "I'm going to Belleperenne."

"I'll drive," Sara said, trembling.

"Sara, you're not going," he said sternly.

"My land, my rules," she said, raising her head in that terribly aristocratic way she did when she wanted to get her way. Most of the time, James found that behavior amusing at the least, even occasionally attractive when she did it in the bedroom. At this moment, it was a nuisance.

Robbie came out.

"Fine," James said, gesturing for Robbie to follow him. "But I'm driving."

/-/

When Robbie saw Belleperenne Manor for the first time, he felt quite keenly that Sara – or rather, Lady Matsbury – was from another world than the one she lived in. She grew up in this massive stately home, he realized, even larger than the stately home James had grown up at, and she'd been raised above stairs. When her parents died, she hadn't simply inherited a house, but a massive monument to bygone eras, with not just a garden but its own massive grounds. James turned the car away from the house, up a service road. He clearly knew where he was going.

Robbie wondered what it must have been like, dating a girl like Sara. When they were at university, she hadn't been the owner of a quirky bookshop. She'd simply lived in a massive manor, and meeting her parents would have meant a weekend at the big house, with its wings and reception spaces and massive formal dining rooms. Dressing for dinner, servants all over the place, knowing which room was used for which occasion…. It felt like Robbie's worst nightmare.

Sara didn't seem keen on it, either.

"I don't think we'll have much of a chase," James said softly. "I'm almost certain they're in the cottage."

"Why?" Sara asked, crossing her arms and shivering.

"Because I don't think the physio assaulted Stephen Beaconsfield," he said, hands on the wheel. "At least, not only the physio. This isn't just about a cover-up, it's about revenge."

Robbie wasn't sure what the revenge was for, but he had a feeling Sara did, by the way her shoulders and neck stiffened at the word.

/-/

Sara threw a fit James found strangely arousing, but he put his foot down and she stayed in the car. He hurried into the cottage, with Robbie following after. He could hear Brian's voice, something in a strained tone in the front room, and James hurried toward it, trying not to make a sound in case he startled someone.

This turned out to be a good plan, because Stanley Charles was pointing Brian's shotgun at Brian, who was sprawled on the floor, looking up at his captor with wide eyes.

He hoped Brian wouldn't alert Stanley to their presence, but he looked up at James with relief, for the first time seeming happy to see him. Stan turned his attention – and his shotgun – onto James, who took a small step back, narrowing his eyes.

"You're not going to kill Brian," James said softly, hearing Robbie go the other direction around the staircase, from the other side of the kitchen and to the far end of the house, where there was another entrance to the front room.

"One of us is leaving in a bag," Stan said firmly, eyes wide and bloodshot. "He took everything from me."

"How?"

"He was untouchable," Stan said, trembling. "He was the future of the club, and Baxter knew to stay away. And that left me out in the lurch. Even after his injury, I was already tainted goods! My career had nowhere to go."

"You've built a life at Abingdon," James said as Robbie crept into view over Stan's shoulder. "You've given everything to this club. You're the face of it! Brian's a servant without a full range of motion. Why do you feel the need for revenge?"

Stan trembled, and James knew it wasn't about the football, wasn't about the career, wasn't about any of that – it was about Stan being a victim of Baxter, where Brian had been off-limits. A practice Stan continued, but he didn't stop there.

"You would declare someone the future," James said softly, "knowing they wouldn't be touched by Baxter. But instead, you ruined them. Slowly. You'd make them feel special first, put the weight of the world on their shoulders, and then you'd take what was taken from you. And they didn't fight back because they were already feeling the pressure of their position, and you were their boss, and they were just kids. Now, you picked the wrong kid, because Stephen Beaconsfield had too much gumption. He was going to tell his mother. He was going to ruin not just Baxter, but you as well, and your hold on the one thing you had left. And you couldn't let that happen."

Stan's breathing was growing heavier, and Robbie was creeping closer, around the corner. James thought if he could just hold his ground, just a few minutes longer….

The front door opened and James felt his heart stop as he heard Sara say, "I'm sorry, I couldn't keep waiting in the car anymore."

James didn't have to turn to know she was behind him, in line of sight, because Stanley had looked at her, and the shotgun was no longer pointing at James, but over his shoulder. Her voice and her footsteps stopped abruptly, and James realized in one terrible moment that Stanley was startled, and he was about to pull the trigger.

Robbie was too far away, James couldn't move the gun without it pointing at his own body, but he was just reaching to do that when Brian launched himself from the floor in a single, horrible, probably painful motion and the shotgun was pointed at the ceiling when it went off, blowing a hole straight through to the second story floor. Robbie tackled Stan, who had lunged toward Sara, obviously thinking she was the weakest target in the room, and James hurried to help her, where a bit of debris from the ceiling had scraped her face.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, grabbing James's arms as he came close to get a good look. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"I'm sorry about the ceiling," Brian grunted from where he'd tumbled back to the ground.

"It's nothing," she sighed. "It's nothing. Easy fix. James, I should have listened to you."

"Damn, I should have got that on tape," he said with a shaky laugh as he pressed a corner of his sleeve to her face to try to stop the bleeding. "It's alright. He's in custody and it's alright."

But it didn't feel alright as she clung to him, trembling and apologizing profusely. James just pressed his sleeve to her face and wrapped his other arm around her waist, squeezing tightly. He could smell gunpowder and roses as he pressed his lips to the part of her hair, and he closed his eyes, ignoring their discordant trembling.

/-/

Sara watched James from the car as he gave the news to a crying Mrs. Beaconsfield, who was thanking him. She smiled to herself, touching the stinging scrape on her face where James had stopped the bleeding. She didn't fully understand his world yet, and certainly didn't have the instincts to interfere in it without invitation, but it was easy to see the result in what he did and its similarities to the result in her work with the clinic. They could never repair the lives of these people, but they could give them a place to start. That critical first step.

When he got back in the car, they simply sat for a moment, silent. She could see her blood staining his shirtsleeve and a tingling spread over her skin.

"So," he said softly, "who's this boyfriend you were going on about earlier?"

She snorted, leaning back into the seat, feeling her face pool with heat.

"No, really," James urged, leaning closer to her, smiling. "Because you know me, Ada, I get jealous. Give me his name. I'll break his neck."

"Very funny," she teased, catching his grin as he put the car in gear. "Can we…can we go see your dad? Or are we out of visiting hours?"

He checked his watch and said, "We won't have long, but we could go if you'd like."

"I would," she said softly, touching his hand with a still-shaking finger. "I really, really would."

 **A/N: So, we've met a member of Sara's staff, Sara has been reintroduced to Philip, she has an inkling for another clinic, and she and James are slowly learning to have a relationship again, in baby steps.**

 **Review Prompt: If this becomes a full-fledged story (which it's looking like it might do), what kind of result would you hope for in their relationship?**

 **Q &A: In my stories, I answer any questions in this section. This could be about the plot, the characters, the writing process, what I eat for breakfast—anything. Toss it my way!**

 **Cheers,**

 **C**


End file.
